Review for Religious - Issue 69.2 (2010)

Issue 69.2 of the Review for Religious, 2010. ; Our Faith Past and Present Looking Forward Personal Witness QUARTERLY 69.2 2010 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, ~dialogue with ourselv~es, anddialogue with_ one another about the holiness we try ta live according to charisms of Cathqlic religioUS life¯ As Pope Pa~il Vl said,~our~way of being’church is~ today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯V~reb site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2010 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits oudined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. ~ gournalof Catholic ~pir~ua~t~y Editor Associate Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Ersparner OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 69.2 2010 contents prisms 116 Prisms 118 131 our faith The Mystical Element of Religion Lawrence Barmann draws from Friedrich von Hiigel’s writings that religion, if it were to be fully developed in an individual, must have three interacting elements-- the institutional, the doctrinal, and the mystical. What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? Martin R. Tripole SJ finds that the definition of priesthood by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, along with Pope Benedict xvI’s understanding that the "purpose of every priest’s mission is one of worship," integrates the traditional elements of a priest’s identity. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection 149 165 past and present Early Church Models of Some Elderly Ministries James J. Magee reports on facilitating reminiscence groups of ~emiretired women religious, inviting them to see how early church history can infuse them with imaginative century-spanning attentiveness to the needs of others. Medieval Nuns of Morienval: Midwives of a New Day Deborah Smith Douglas shares the wonder and appreciation for the first diagonal stone rib at the abbey church at Morienval that marks the visionary courage and openness to change of an unknown 12th-century abbess. Review for Religious 173 180 God’s Irresistible Call Invites Us to Hope Juliet Mousseau reflects on her call to enter religious life to find the wholeness and the joy that comes from living according to the image of God that lives within us. To Imitate the Angels’ Purity: Ignatius’s and John Paul’s Counsel Vincent L. Strand SJ comments on St. Ignatius Loyola’s brief counsel on chastity in the light of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection ¯ 196 201 Evening Counsel M. Evelynn Reinke SND allows us to enter with her into the wisdom reflections of three Old Testament women-- Sarah, wife of Abraham, Elizabeth, wife of Zachary, and Ann,a, widow in the temple. Cardinal Newman and Don Bosco Leo J. Heriot SDB compares llfe events in two important churchmen of the 19th century--John Henry Newman and Don Bosco of Turin. 209 Scripture Scope: Theological and Spi.ritual Observations on the Psalms 214 Book Reviews 115 69.2 2010 prisms 116 Te Jubilee Year for Priests began on the solemn feast of the Sacred Heart, Friday, June 19, 2009, and will conclude on that same feast day, June I 1, 2010. Pope Benedict xvI desired that the year might mean the deepening of commitment of all priests in building up the Kingdom and in radiating God’s love. The pope also intended that the role and mission of the priest might be more clearly perceived by all the. faithful. During this celebratory year, as a priest I hear the call to. be reflective about my l!ving of this vocation and its witness and mission. The past decade or more has not been an easy one for us who are priests. In the United States, Canada, and Ireland particularly, the child sex-abuse cases have cast a dark shadow over a large segment of church ministers. Whether correctly perceived or not, it seems that some bishops may have been more eager to save face than to care for the alleged priest-offenders or deal personally with the identified victims. Many priests have felt the distance to be a chasm between themselves and the bishops with whom they work. As a religious priest, I have been graced always to have religious superiors who exercise loyalty and personal care for everyone of us in good times and in bad. Review for Religious Then there is the continuing controversy about priestly ordination for women. Although there is a church position that this is not a matter for study or discussion, the question, especially in view of the practice of many Christian churches, remains. For many of us priests, it is hard dealing with good and holy women who feel reduced to a secondary status in the church’s life and mission. Their pain, disappointment, and sometimes anger at the church authorities’ dismissing of the ordination question touches us and leaves us with only compassion to offer. But how do I celebrate as priest? The heart of my celebration is the Eucharist. How wonderful that by priestly ordination I am designated to lead the community in our giving ourselves together with Christ to God the Father and to one another and all our brothers and sisters. This repeated act of surrender expressed in every Mass speaks out the meaning and direction of all our lives. What a privilege in the Liturgy of the Word to try to relate the word of God--empowering and enlightening--to our everyday lives! The action of the Eucharist allows for no controversy. Then there are the sacraments celebrating significant moments in people’s lives--their marriage, the baptism of children and adults into Christ, the forgiveness of sin in reconciliation, and the anointing at times of serious illness and at death. Mary has been described as "the reed of God," and I as a priest am meant to. be a similar conduit for God and God’s action at these special times. All the incidental moments of presence and conversation often become truly sacramental in my priesdy role and function. This is how I minister; this is how I serve. Like the risen Christ inviting us to share .in his joy of victory, I seek to share my joy of being gifted as priest. David L. Fleming SJ 117 69.2 2010 our faith LAWRENCE BARMANN The Mystical Element of Religion Whatever else one might say about Pope Pius X’s encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis of 1907, one cannot deny that it mostly stifled two gen-erations of theological creativity in the Catholic Church and that it marginalized some Catholic thinkers who otherwise might beneficially have nourished Catholic life and thought. One of these marginalized Catholics, and one of the most important, was Baron Friedrich von Hiigel. He thought and wrote not in the neo-scholas-tic tradition which was alone approved by the Vatican at the beginning of the 20th century, but rather in a thoroughly idiosyncratic manner which manifested influences from pre-Christian classicism and post-Christian modernism as well as from the entire Christian tradition. His great two-volume work, The Mystical Element Lawrence Barmann, emeritus professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, writes from 5435 Vicar Court; Saint Louis, Missouri 63119. Review for Religious of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends, was published in December 1908. An eminent contemporary scholar of Western mysticism has called it "one of the masterpieces of the modern study of mysti-cism." This work has much to offer today to Catholic seekers of a deeper and growing spiritual life, and it certainly deserves a reconsideration on the occasion of its centennial. Friedrich von Hiigel ’was the eldest son. of a German father and a Scottish mother, and inherited the title of Baron of the Holy Roman Empire. He was born in 1852 in Florence, Italy, where his father was Austrian minister to the court of the grand duke of Tuscany. As a boy in Italy he gained a sense of what Western Christianity had been before the split which the Protestant Reformation brought about; and that sense, he tells us, remained as a vivid consciousness throughout his life. It was an ampler pre-Protestant, as yet neither Protestant nor anti-Protestant, but deeply positive and Catholic, world, with its already characteristically modern out-look and its hopeful and spontaneous application of religion to the pressing problems of life and thought, which helped to strengthen and sustain me, when depressed and hemmed in by the types of devotion prevalent since in western Christendom. The post-Tridentine type of Catholicism, with its "regimental seminarism, its predominantly controversial spirit, its suspiciousness and timidity," failed to win his love. So he sought and found elsewhere well within the Roman Catholic Church "things more intrinsically lov-able." In the course of his search he developed the desire eventually to write about one of those "large-souled pre-Protestant, post-Mediaeval Catholics" whom he had discovered in the early Italian Renaissance. Toward 119 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ The Mystical Element of Religion the end of his life von Htigel explained to his niece why he had chosen Stl Catherine Fiesca of Genoa as the subject for his study of the mystical dimension of reli-gion. "I wanted a heroic Christian who was almost a Neo-Platunist, an Institutional who, in some ways, hung loosely on institutions; a deep thinker beset with much psycho-physical disturbance," he told his niece. He said that he was not aiming at a work of art, but "at taking in as much as possible of real life--to show very original and exquisite spirituality having to live on largely in this rough world, to get somewhat conventionalified to suit the array of even very good people." Decades of reading, research, prayer, consultation, spiritual direction, and conscious living eventually prepared von Htigel to begin to write on the mystical dimension of religion. He told his niece in 1920 that¯ he thought all religious books should be "the quintes-sence of a long experience and fight in suffering and self-transformation." There can be no doubt that this was how his own book was written. It began with a jour-nal article which he published in 1898. Since 1870 yon Hiigel had lived in England with his family, and after his marriage in 1873 to Lady Mary Catherine Herbert he lived in the Hampstead area of greater London. Sydney Mayle, the Protestant publisher of the Hampstead Annual, asked von-Hiigel to prepare an article on one of the great Catholic mystics, suggest-ing Franci~ of Assisi or Teresa of Avila. But yon Hiigel chose Catherine of Genoa, about whom he had already been making a study. In writing the article he cleared up for himself a number of issues pertaining to mysticism with which he had been wrestling. One of these issues was the theory of spiritual puri-fication about which various saints and mystics had Review for Religious written. Some of this theory von Hiigel agreed with and some not. He agreed that "God, our own souls, all the supreme realities and truths, supremely deserving and claiming our assent and practice,--are both incompre-hensible and indefinitely apprehensible." And both must be realized in our actual knowledge and practice. He also agreed that one’s increasing apprehension of these spiri-tual realities happens "more through the purification of the heart than through the exercise of the reason." He also agreed with the mystics that the primary function of religion is not the consoling of the natural man as it finds him, but the purifica-tion of this man, by effecting an ever-growing cleav-age and contrast between his bad false self, and the false, blind self-love that clings to that self, and his good true self, and the true, enlightened self-love that clings to the true self; and the deepest, gener-ally confused and dumb, aspirations of every human heart, correspond exacdy to, and come from precisely the same source, as the external helps and examples of miracle, Church or Saint. The true exceptional is thus never the queer, but the supremely normal, and but embodies, in an exceptional degree, the deepest, and hence exceptional longings of us all. And, finally, the Baron agreed with the traditional mys-tical theory which taught that the purification of the natural man would take place through his voluntarily immersing himself in something necessarily painful to the false, animal man, but willed and accepted by the true spiritual self. Where he disagreed with the writings of some of the Catholic mystics themselves, though their real-life practice belied their theory, was in bow this necessary purification was to take place. The traditional teaching was that purification of the natural man was achieved 121 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ The Mystical Element of Religion The traditional teaching was that purification of the natural man was achieved by turning away from the particular, by abstraction and becoming increasingly absorbed in the general. by turning away from the particular, by abstraction and becoming increasingly absorbed in the general, "as lead-ing away from the particularity of the creature to the simplicity of the Creator." Von Hiigel argued that the process should not be an either/or practice, but rather a double process of both. For him "the most difficult and yet most complete and most fruitful condition and therefore the ideal, would be the plunging into the concrete and coming back enriched to the abstract, and then return-ing, purified and simplified, from the abstract to transform and elevate the con-crete." VChat this means is that one does not need to flee involvement with the world or repudiate the importance of one’s work within it. Rather, one’s work and involve-ment in the world have a purifying value and conse-quently have a normal necessary place in the very theory of spirituality. For von Hiigel, God "is the supremely concrete, supremely individual and particular, and the mental and practical occupafon with .the particular must ever remain an integral part of my way to Him." In his 1898 article von Hiigel also dealt with the issue of the physical and psychic health of the historical mys-tics, and he concluded that there was no necessary con- Review for Religious nection in St. Catherine of Genoa’s life, nor in that of any of the true mystics, between their health problems and the moral/spiritual characters of their teachings. A few years later William James was to deal with the same issue in his Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh on "The Varieties of Religious Experience. Interestingly, James came out in the same place as yon Hiigel had, noting that Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her the-ology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests [i.e., "philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness’] should show it to be contemptible. And conversely if her theology can stand these other te~ts, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off her bal-ance Saint Teresa may have been when she was with us here below. Once Mayle had von Hiigel’s article in hand, but before it was actually printed, he made the Baron an offer to publish a Small book on Catherine of Genoa and various questions suggested by her life. Nearly every sentence of the original article needed expansion and clarification, and this is what von Hiigel intended to explore in the book. Almost immediately he came to realize that Mayle’s offer of 24,000 words would be inadequate, and he plodded along for ten years before the two-volume study was published by Dent in 1908. But during those years he also spent endless hours and days working and writing in an effort to prevent the Vatican from condemning the biblical studies of Alfred Loisy and the theology of George Tyrrell. In a letter to Tyrrell in 1901 about his progress on the book, the Baron wrote: I can’t help hoping now, more strongly than at first, that the result of the whole will be a living organism, something that will be able to enter into other minds 123 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ The Mystical Element of Religion 1241 and hearts, and grow and bring fruit there. Certainly the effect upon myself is being considerable: I have become a good bit more of a person, please God of the right, the spiritual-humble sort, by battling and toiling with .and in and over these great realities and problems. But von Hiigel’s consistent poor health and his battle to preserve openness in the church for serious Scripture scholars and theologians who were breaking new ground caused him to tell Tyrrell six months later that "my strength goes in trying to console and sustain friends scattered about over the face of Europe. And this again, I should not mind or complain of, still I want badly to express myself, in my writings, if only once, and as well as I can. But I cannot do both,--attend to my friends and my book." He did, of course, do both. Reading yon Hiigel’s Diaries for those years between 1898 and 1908 and especially reading his correspon-dence with Tyrrell, one comes to realize what a struggle the production of his book had been. After its publi-cation it was .widely reviewed and almost always very favorably. Several criticisms by the Anglican bishop Charles Gore the Baron felt were completely justified: "That the style is often heavy, sometimes slipshod; that there is too much of quotation, or semi-quotation in it; and that the narration portion is without any narrative charm." But almost all of the reviewers recognized the profound character and worth of this exhaustive study of Christian spirituality, and von Hiigel even acknowl-edged that Gore "has been very kind about the book." The Baron himself thought that the best of the whole work was volume two, in which he developed in detail his theory of Christian mysticism. His reviewers, however, almost universally thought that chapter two Review for Religious of the first volume was the high point of the book. And it is, perhaps, that ~hapter which could be most fruitful for the lives of contemporary Catholics and Christians generally. It was in this chapter two that von Hiigel presented and explained his idea that religion, if it were to be fully developed in an individual, must have three interacting elements--the institutional, the doctrinal, and the mystical. In the first chapter of his first volume von Hiigel had demonstrated that all life and truth are deeply com-plex no matter how great their seeming unity, from the human perspective at least. And in his second chapter he said that he "should like to show the complexity special to the deepest kind of life, to Religion; and to attempt some description of the working harmoni-zation of this com-plexity." He began by showing how all three elements of religion appear in the child’s consciousness, then the youth’s, and finally the adult’s; he also shows how at each stage one element is predominant. For a child whose parents or teachers belong to some traditional institutional religion, the child’s first impres-sion of religion ordinarily comes from their explanation of an external religious symbol or place or book in a way which appeals to the child’s imagination and mem-ory and which henceforth represents authority. These The Baron himself thought that the best of the whole work was volume two, in which he developed in detail his theory of Christian mysticism. 125 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ Tbe Mystical Element of Religion 126 earliest impressions precede the child’s ability to choose between them and even any really distinct consciousness of them. But from this time "the External, Authoritative, Historical, Traditional, Institutional side and function of Religion are everywhere evident." Religion, yon Hiigel says, "is here, above all, a Fact and Thing." As the child grows into an adolescent, however, "there wakes up another activity and requirement of human nature, and another side of Religion comes forth to meet it." Now it is the reasoning, argumentative, abstractive side of human nature which comes to the fore. The adoles-cent begins to question the old impressions, and religion at this point becomes "Thought, System, a Philosophy." And, finally, in the fully adult person a third activity comes into play and is met by a third element of reli-gion. At this point "certain interior experiences, certain deep-seated spiritual pleasures and pains, weaknesses and powers, helps and hinderances, are increasingly known and felt in and through interior and exterior action, and interior suffering, effort, and growth." Through this an individual comes to the realization of his real self, "his own deeper personality." His emotional, volitional, ethi-cal, and spiritual powers are in increasing motion, and are met by the third element of religion, "the Experimental and.Mystical." At this point religion is less felt or rea-soned, and more loved and lived. None of these three elements of religion is ever experienced in total isolation from the ot.hers, and there is nearly always a tension in their joint presence. "In the living human being indeed there never exists a mere apprehension of something external and sensible, without any interior elaboration, any interpretation by the head and heart." And this, of course, is true of reli-gion as well; religion is always in need of "authority and Review for Religious society; of reason and proof; of interior sustenance and purification." As the child becomes the adolescent there is always the danger of either clinging to the external, institutional side of religion at the expense of "reasoned, intellectual apprehension and systematization" of it; or, on the other hand, jettisoning the institutional in favor of the merely intellectual. The one leads to superstition, and the other to rationalism and indifference. Even if the believer successfully handles the first crisis between the institutional and intellectual dimen-sions of religion, there is still the third dimension of religion which must be balanced with the other two, that of the emotional-experimental life. To the insti-tutional side this emotional power will almost always appear revolutionary; to the intellectual side it will seem subjective and sentimental. For its part the emotional-experimental side will be tempted to sweep aside both the institutional and intellectual elements. If it succeeds, "fanaticism is in full sight." The emotional-experimental element of religion, the mystical element, if it is comfortably balanced with the institutional and doctrinal elements, results in full trust and unconditional surrender, not to some thing, but to some one. This surrender, von Hiigel says, is to "some One, Whose right, indeed Whose very power to claim me consists precisely in that He is Himself abso-lutely, infinitely and actually, what I am but derivatively, finitely and potentially." And this realization leads to true religious growth and expansion. To prevent religion from becoming either a mere external club or, on the other hand, a sheer intellectualism, a gnosticism, the mystical element uses the resources of both the insti-tutional and doctrinal elements to build a full, more integrative concept of personality. 127 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ The Mystical Element of Religion The mystical element uses the resources of both the institutional and doctrinal elements to build a full~ more integrative concep t of perso nality~ 128 Here, von Hiigel believes, the individual, the moral and spiritual character, "has to be built up slowly, pain-fully, laboriously, throughout all the various stages and circumstances of life, with their endless combinations of pleasure and pain, trouble and temptation, inner and outer help and hinderance, suc-cess and failure." Thus is the mere individual gradu-ally transformed into the true per-son "only by the successive sacri-fice of the lower, of the merely ani-mal and impov-erishingly selfish self, with the help of God’s constant, prevenient, con-comitant, and subsequent grace." This is a process which is slow and laborious and constantly being renewed; it involves "that constant death to self, that perpetual conversion, that unification and peace in and through a continuous inner self-estrangement and conflict, which is the very breath and joy of the religious life." So for Friedrich von Htigel, an adult Christian with a fully developed and growing religious life will find that it has these three dimensions: the institutional, the intellectual, and the mystical, bringing into a har- -monious interaction the senses, intellect, and will. It is with this third dimension, the mystical, and its rela-tions with the other two dim, ensions, that the rest of the book is concerned. For anytne who thinks that "mysti-cal" implies visions, trances, levitations, stigmata, and Review for Religious other such phenomena, the Baron shows how these things have nothing to do with the mystical element of religion as a dimension of the serious Christian’s life. Implicit in the whole book, and in his treatment of St. Catherine of Genoa, is the conviction that the spiritual refinement and depth manifested in the lives of those whom church authorities have designated as mystics is, potentially at least, open to every human creature in varying degrees. Von Hfigel believed that a full manifestation of reli-gion in a person’s life would of necessity have a mystical dimension, a volitional-emotional dimension, interact-ing with the institutional and doctrinal dimensions. Mid- and late-20th-century Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner and Thomas Merton have in their writings and in their own vernacular expressed the same idea. In 1911 von Hiigel wrote to Abbot Cuthbert Butler of Downside Abbey in the west of.England concerning an article which the latter had published on recent books related to mysticism. He asked Butler why religious men generally have, as in fact they have done, so greatly cared for mysticism, if all the mysti-cal states are strictly the affair of a small elite only. The answer is, of course, that the more elementary of these experiences are, in endless degrees, combina-tions, ways and durations, not the exclusive property of such a small elite, and that the good, old, classical Catholic tradition knew no such doctrine but very deliberately and quietly taught the precise reverse. Today in the Catholic church, especially as it exists in the Western world, there is much confusion about what religion, and particularly Roman Catholic reli-gion, is and is meant to be. It is not an exaggeration to say that the institutional side of Catholic religion is overstressed by the hierarchy, and that the intellec- 69.2 2010 Barmann ¯ The Mystical Element of Religion 130 tual-doctrinal side is overpoliced by the Vatican. Hardly any ecclesiastical authorities in the Catholic Church, it seems, are concerned about the mystical dimension of Catholicism, and yet many ordinary serious Catholics are longing for some leadership in that direction as their search for inspiring liturgies and for genuinely holy pas-tors and religious superiors seems to indicate. If yon Hiigel’s ideas on the mystical dimension of ordinary bal-anced Catholicism bore fruit in the homilies heard from Catholic pulpits and in the devotional writings coming from the Catholic press, then the institutional and doc-trinal dimensions of Catholicism might become properly limited by and integrated with the mystical dimension in a significant number of individual Catholics and in the church as a whole. Bibliography Baron Friedrich von Hiigel. The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends, 2 vols. London: J.M. Dent & Company, 1908 (reprinted in 1923). ¯ "Caterina Fiesca Adorna, the Saint of Genoa, 1447-1510." In The Hampstead Annual. London: Sidney C. Mayle, 1898, pp. 70- 85. Lawrence Barmann. "Baron Friedrich von Hiigel and Mysticism: In Pursuit of the Christian Ideal." In Sanctity and Secularity during the Modernist Period, ed. Lawrence Barmann and C.J.T. Talar. Brussels: Societ6 des Bollandistes, 1999, pp. 103-130. ¯ "The Modernist as Mystic." In Catholicism Contending with Modernity, ed. Darrell Jodock. Cambridge:. Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 215-247. Review for Religious MARTIN R. TRIPOLE What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? ~foOpe Benedict XVI inaugurated the Jubilee Year r Priests at Vespers on Friday, 19June 2009, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. The 150th anniversary of the death of St. Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney, the Cur4 of Ars, was 4 August 2009.~ The jubilee year’s theme was "Faithfulness of Christ, Faithfulness of Priests." The year will close with a three-day world meeting of priests at the Vatican ending with this year’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, 11 June 2010. The pope has pro-claimed the Cur4 the patron saint not only of parish priests but of all priests. On 16 March 2009 the pope told the Congregation for the Clergy that the year was designed to encourage priests to strive for the "spiritual perfection" on which "the Martin R. Tripole SJ writes from the Jesuit .Community at St. Joseph’s University; 261 City Avenue; Merion Station, Pennsylvania 19066. 131 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? effectiveness of their ministry depends." He directed the congregation to make "the importance of the priest’s role and mission in the church and in contemporary society ever more clearly perceived.’’2 In a letter sent in mid-June to the priests of the world, he said the year was "meant to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a stronger and more incisive witness to the gospel in today’s world.’’3 In his 19 June homily, he said the year was for priests an "opportunity to grow ever closer to Jesus, who counts on us, his ministers, to spread and build up his kingdom, and to radiate his love and his truth."4 The Compassionate Love of God and Jesus The heart of God burns with love and compas-sion for all humanity. Twenty-six times in the Old Testament, God speaks from his "heart." The New Testament reveals "God’s boundless and passionate ¯ love for mankind." With "infinite mercy," God "sends his only-begotten Son into the world" to defeat "the power of evil and death" and "restore to human beings enslaved by sin their dignity as sons and daughters." The "pierced heart of the Crucified One" is a symbol of the Son’s love. According to Benedict, the "very core of Christianity is expressed in the heart of Jesus." It represents "the Love that saves us and even now makes us live in the eternity of God." In his homily Benedict recalls the saying associated with the Cur~ of Ars: "The priesthood is the lov~ of the heart of Jesus"S--the priesthood expresses Jesus’ love for the human race. The pope says, "The gift of our priestly ministry flows directly from this heart." God’s plan is to make Christ "the heart of the world." This plan is achieved in l~istory "as Jesus gradually becomes the Review for Religious Heart of human hearts," starting with "those called to ¯ be closest to him: namely his priests." "A ’heart to heart’ encounter with Christ" occurs when priests "break the bread of his love," "forgive sins," and "guide the flock in his name." Although for all baptized Christians "God’s heart calls to our hearts, inviting us to come out of ourselves, to forsake our human certainties, to trust in him, and by following his example to make ourselves a gift of unbounded love," this is especially true for priests, for priests are "consecrated to serve, humbly yet authoritatively, the common priesthood of the faith-ful." Benedict cites Vianney: "After God, the priest is everything!. Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is" (Homily).6 Vianney’s Self-Identity and Mission According to Benedict, "all Christ’s saving activity was, and is, an expression of his ’filial consciousness.’" Benedict sees in Vianney "the complete identification of the man with his ministry," a filial consciousness con-formed to God’s will and witnessing to Christ’s saving mercy (Letter). Benedict speaks of a "pairing of iden-tity with mission," or a "’diptych’ of consecration and mission" that is appropriate to the priest. Every priest needs this if he is to arrive at "that gradual identifica-tion with Christ which will guarantee him fidelity and the fruitfulness of gospel witness." The priest belongs totally to the Lord and totally to all people. This makes his "personal relationship with Christ" one with his vocation "to extend the kingdom, of God to the ends of the earth.’’7 Vianney understood himself as deeply identified with the sacrifice of the Mass and the cross. He was accus-tomed when celebrating the Mass "to offer his own life 133 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? According to Benedict,~ the priest today must be, as Vianney was, a "forceful witness to the gospel" and not simply a teacher. ’134 in sacrifice," which he saw completed with the "dialogue of salvation" and the "flood of divine mercy" that took place in the confessional. It is said that, "by the end of his life, he [would] spend sixteen to eighteen hours a day _ in the confessional, and he was mobbed whenever he appeared. He heard twenty thousand confessions a year, up to three hundred a day.’’s To those who came to him in confession seeking a deeper spiritual life, Vianney "flung open the abyss of God’s love." According to Benedict, "the core of [Vianney’s] teaching remains valid for each of us: souls have been won at the price of Jesus’ own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their salvation if he refuses to share personally in the ’pre-cious cost’ of redemption" (Letter). According to Benedict, the priest today must be, as Vianney was, a "forceful witness to the gospel" and not simply a teacher. Benedict provides some questions a priest should ask himself: "Are we truly pervaded by the Word of God? Is that Woi’d truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that Word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this Word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking?" (Letter). Definition of Priest The World Synod of Bishops held in Rome 30 September-28 October 1990 was devoted to "The Review for Religious Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day." At that synod Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, then president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, felt that, because of Vatican II’s slight of the role of priests, the priesthood had begun "to lose a sense of its own distinctiveness." He hoped the following definition "would distinguish priesthood from other roles in the church and . . . enunciate its distinctive reality": The priest is a member of the Christian faithful who has been permanently configured by Christ through holy orders to serve the church, in collaboration with the local bishop, as representative and agent of Christ, the head of the church, and therefore as representative and agent of the church community before God and the world.9 By "permanently configured" to Christ, Pilarczyk means that the sacrament of holy orders marks the priest with an indelible characterl° that operates in his unique threefold relationship as mediator: (1) He "represents and acts in the person of Christ" as "head and leader of the church" (Christ’s Mystical Body). (2) He acts as "agent of Christ in representing the people before God," and (3) he represents "the church commu-nity to the world." Saying that the priest is alter Christus (another Christ) along with all the faithful by reason of baptism, Pilarczyk suggests he is also "Miter" Christus (Christ in another way)~--in fact, in those three ways. In his discussion of Pilarczyk’s definition, Avery Dulles SJ said the terms "representative" and "agent" do not mean "substitutes" but organic embodiments of Christ either as Head or Mystical Body,12 that is, in Christological and ecclesial aspects of the mystery. The priest becomes Christ himself "visibly and sacramentally 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? 136 present" and also "one who embodies in a public way the existence of the Church itself.’’13 When the priest baptizes, "the church acts in and through him.’’14 Priests are "organs through which it [the Church] prays and professes its faith.’’~5 According to Dulles, No sharp distinction can be made between the activi-ties of Christ and of the church. Because the church remains at the service of Christ, who must act visibly through his representatives, the priest must have, on occasion, a capacity to act in the person of Christ as head of the church. Such activity may fall into the categories of teaching, worship, or pastoral rule . VVhen the priest acts as a pure instrument, he is not using his own power but simply allowing the power of Christ or the Holy Spirit to work through him . There is nothing to prevent the laity from being used for certain functions by Christ or the church as instru-ments, but when this happens they do not act by virtue of a sacramental character that gives them a public status in the church. The priest alone is the minister radically empowered to be a public representative of the church and of Christ when he acts as Lord of the church.16 This conception of the priest’s role has traditionally been expressed in theological and magisterial teaching by the phrase in persona Christi and sometimes also by the phrase in persona Ecclesiae. In reference to both the Eucharistic consecration and the sacraments of recon-ciliation and baptism, Thomas Aquinas used in persona Christi to mean that one had "power from Christ to act in such a way that one’s acts are the acts of Christ.’’~7 Actions performed in persona Ecdesiae are "cultic" and express "the church’s devotion and spiritual sacrifice." Both actions "require the mediation of the ordained minister acting either in the person of Christ or in the person of the church.’’18 Review for Religious Using the former expression in a comprehensive way, Dulles succinctly expresses what it means for the priest to act in the person of Christ: "When the priest is said to act ’in the person of Christ,’ emphasis is placed on the specifically divine quality of the effect that is produced thanks to the principal causality of Christ as head of the church. In this capacity the priest is set ’over against’ the rest of the body of Christ.’’~9 The expression in persona Christi is most often used in reference to the words of consecration in the Eucharist. Deliberately in the first person singular, the words indicate that "Christ is the principal speaker and actor"--the priest "can be no more than an instrumental cause.’’2° Thus, the Eucharist is "identically the same sacrifice that was offered on Calvary. As the Council of Trent [1545-1563] clearly taught, the priest and the victim are the same; only the manner of offering is dif-ferent. -21 Dulles stresses, as many liturgists do today, how important it is that the priest be clearly seen and under-stood as representing the person of Christ in liturgi-cal actions, rather than letting the focus of attention be drawn to himself: The ministerial priesthood involves a public repre-sentational function rather than a personal giftedness. ¯. The priest at the altar is not supposed to attempt a vivid depiction or imitation of the action of Christ, or to embellish Christ’s words through dramatization. Such behavior can actually distract the congregation from the true meaning and content of the sacrifice. ¯ . . The less the congregation are distracted by the priest’s personal style, the more likely they are to observe that the self-effacement of Christ himself serves as a model for the priest’s persona.22 137 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ Wbat Does It Mean to Be a Priest? 138 The Faithful and the Ministerial Priesthood Pilarczyk, in defining the priesthood, made use of the teaching revived in Vatican II’s Lumen gentium (LG) of two types of priesthood, "the common priest-hood of the faithful" in which all the faithful, both laity and priests, share by reason of their baptism, and "the ministerial priesthood" belonging only to the ordained clergy. The distinction between the two priesthoods is not one of "degree" (as it is with priests participating only to a degree in the bishop’s full priesthood), but one of i’essence" (with a discontinuity between the clergy’s priesthood and that of the faithful): Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated. Each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ. The ministerial priest, by the sacred power .he enjoys, molds and rules the priestly people. Acting in the person of Christ, he brings about the Eucharistic sacrifice, and offers it to God in the name of all the people. For their part, the faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood. They likewise exercise that priesthood by receiving the sacraments, by prayer and thanksgiving, by the witness of a holy life, and by self-denial and active charity. (LG ~10)23 Vatican II understands the church to include the entire People of God sharing in "the triple office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king. This the Church does by its threefold function of worship (ministry), witness, and communal life" (LG §~10-13).24 But the distinctive way in which priests share in these three offices is clarified at .length in LG §28. Vv’hile not pos-sessing the "highest degree of the priesthood" and Review for Religious being "dependent on the bishops in the exercise of their power," they are consecrated to preach the gospel, shepherd the faithful, and celebrate divine worship as true priests of the New Testament. Partakers of the func-tion of Christ the sole Mediator on their level of ministry, they announce the divine word to all. They exercise this sacred function of Christ most of all in the Eucharistic liturgy or synaxis. There, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they join the offering of the faithful to the sacrifice of their Head. Until the coming of the Lord, they re-present and apply in the Sacrifice of the Mass the one sacrifice of the New Testament, namely the sac-rifice of Christ offering himself once and for all to his Father as a spotless victim. (LG §28) Priest, Prophet, and King: Which Is Primary? Theologians have asked which of the three offices or functions is primary for the priest: the prophetic (to proclaim the gospel), the priestly (to celebrate the Eucharist), or the royal (to govern). The Scriptures show that the Twelve did all three. They were commissioned to evangelize, to baptize, to forgive sins, to celebrate the Eucharist, and to govern the community.2s In the late New Testament period, "the authoritative ministry of the word and the rule of the churches were gradually entrusted to bishops and presbyters." Who presided at the liturgy at this time is not clear, but "Catholic tradi-tion has generally assumed that the apostles designated bishops, presbyters, or their equivalents to perform this function.’’26 In the post-New Testament period, different empha-ses prevail. The Didache (late 1st to early 2nd century) speaks of prophets as "high priests." The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus in the early 3rd century speaks 139 69.2 2010 Tripole * What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? Aquinas sees the priesthood to be primarily in "the offering of the Eucharis t." of the presbyters’ tasks only in reference to "the gov-ernment of the people of God. There is no indication that presbyters are expected either to preach or to cel-ebrate the Eucharist." By the end of the 4th century, however, presbyters were taking on "a leadership role in the celebration of the liturgy and in preaching.’’27 Among the later Fathers, the "dominant functions of bishops and pres- ~ byters" were those of a priest: "prayer, worship, and sacra-mental ministry.’’28 In the Middle Ages, "presbyters were increasingly seen as the normal presiders at the Eucharist." Aquinas sees the priesthood to be primarily in "the offering of the Eucharist.’’29 The Council of Trent, in its Decree on the Sacrament of Order, defined the priesthood in terms of priestly power: instituted by our Lord and Savior and endowed with "the power of consecrating, offering, and admin-istering his body and blood, and likewise the power of remitting and of retaining sins" (DS §1764, Church Teaches §840).30 Elsewhere, however, when discussing teaching and preaching, the Council of Trent indicated that "preaching. is the chief task of the bishops," and that they may also appoint "ordinary priests., to feed with the words of salvation the people committed to their charge.’’3~ Canon 4 of Session 24 states: "It is the desire of the council that the office of preaching, which particularly belongs to bishops, should be exercised as often as possible for the salvation of the people.’’32 Review for Religious Vatican II, as we saw above, mentions only the priestly function of the ordained priest in LG §10, but in §28 seems to give equal prominence to all three roles. However, in LG §25 the council indicates that, "among the principal duties of bishops, the preaching of the gos-pel occupies an eminent place," and in Presbyterorum ordinis (PO), the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, the proclamation of the gospel is indicated as the "primary duty" of priests: The People of God finds its unity first of all through the word of the living God, which is quite properly sought from the lips of priests. Since no one can be saved who has not first believed, priests, as co-work-ers with their bishops, have as their primary duty the proclamation of the gospel of God to all. In this way they fulfill the Lord’s command: "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mk 16:15). Thus they establish and build up the People of God. (PO §4, and see ~13)33 Regarding the post-Vatican II period, Dulles argues that John Paul II "seems to give priority to the sac-erdotal function of the ordained" and thereby remains closer to Aquinas and Trent. In his 1980 Holy Thursday Letter, he writes that "the priest fulfills his principal mission and is manifested in all his fullness when he celebrates the Eucharist.’’34 Jean Galot SJ goes beyond this discussion of what is primary in his famous study of the priesthood where he argues that Jesus came as Shepherd that combines all three offices: Jesus expands the reality of the priesthood. Whereas in the Old Testament the priestly function was almost entirely confined to the domain of worship, the shep-herd takes on the functions of the prophet, of the priest in the cultic sense, and of the king, all at the same time.35 141 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? Benedict seems to understand worship and mission as related to each other in such a way that neither is complete without the other. 142 For Galot, "the office of shepherd is not to be defined in opposition to the ministry of word and sacrament, but rather as including them . The three functions of preaching, worship, and community leadership become for Galot so many expressions of the shepherd’s love."36 Most theologians, however, seem to focus on whether the office of priest or prophet is primary. Benedict seeks to overcome division over this issue in his own distinc-tive way. He fears that too much emphasis on proclama-tion could lead to "a social and functional concept" of the priesthood in service to the community, to the det-riment of the "sacramental-ontological concept" of the priest related to sacrifice. Too much emphasis upon the latter office, however, can lead to deemphasizing mission. He therefore links the two offices to Christ, and argues that there is both a primacy of the Eucharistic sacrifice and a primacy of proclamation, and that mak-ing both offices primary is not "contradictory" because they coincide in the "very person of Christ," who is in himself both priest-sacrifice and Word, "ontologically open to the relationship with the Father" and obedient to his will.37 In Benedict’s understanding of the priest, "ontologi-cal- sacramental identity and evangelizing mission must never be separated" and, again, "missionary preaching and worship can never be separated." This unity allows Review for Religious Benedict to correlate the two offices: "The priesdy min-istry and identity" is "essentially missionary," and the "purpose of every priest’s mission is one of worship." Benedict thus seems to understand worship and mis-sion as related to each other in such a way that nei-ther is complete without the other. "All people offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice" in "praise of the Creator," through whom they receive "that love which they in turn are called to offer to each other in abun-dance." Thus there are two essential elements of the priestly ministry. Jesus sends the Apostles out to proclaim the gos-pel and gives them the power to expel evil spirits. "Proclamation" and "power," that is, "word" and "sacrament," are therefore the two basic pillars of priesdy service, over and above its possible multiple circumstances. (Audience) As John Chrysostom says, "the sacrament of the altar" and the "sacrament of the poor man" are "two aspects of the same mystery." For Benedict, "Love for one’s neigh-bor, attention to justice and to the poor, are not so much themes of a moral society as they are an expression of a sacramental conception of Christian morality," because "the spiritual sacrifice of all the faithful is fulfilled in union with that of Christ, the one Mediator. through the ministry of priests." The "sacrifice that priests offer in an unbloody and sacramental way" allows the faithful to "combine their sacrifice with Christ’s through love of God and of one’s neighbor" (Audience). The Ontological Distinctiveness of the Priest The priest’s ministry of proclamation is apostolic. The mandate "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation" (Mk 16:15) is given only to the 143 69.2 2010 Tripole ¯ Wbat Does It Mean to Be a Priest? "Eleven" (Mk 16:14) as a function of their priesthood established at the Last Supper.38 But the priest’s ministry is also sacramental, for it is rooted in the priest’s "sacra-mental configuration to Christ" (Address, 16 March). For Benedict, although "the whole Church is mis-sionary" and "every Christian, by virtue of baptism and confirmation quasi ex officio, receives the mandate to profess the faith publicly," the "ministerial priesthood" is "ontologically distinct" from "the baptismal priest-hood that is also known as the ’common priesthood’" (Address, 16 March). He is here reaffirming Vatican II’s note at the end of Lumen gentium that, in episco-pal consecration, "an ontological participation in sacred functions" is given.’’39 Here configuration and ontol-ogy come together, denoting the sacramental character given to the priest (Address, 16 March). The "true newness of the New Testament" is found in "a person: God, who becomes a human being and draws humans to himself.’’4° Benedict understands the ministerial priest as one who is distinctively assimilated into the life of this person, into a "new style of life" that was inaugurated by Jesus’ intimate union with the Twelve before they went out to preach for him (Letter). This intimate union coupled with mission is evidenced in Mk 16:14-15, where Jesus is "revealed to the Eleven" and then tells them to "go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation." See also Mt 28:16-20, where Jesus addresses himself to the "eleven disciples," and, after declaring the "full authority" he has from on high, tells them to "go. and make dis-ciples of all nations." Jesus himself, who was "sent," passes on the mission that his Father entrusted to him: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you" (Jn 20:21). From this Christological center, the "ministry of the aposdes" is born: Review for Religious Jesus created a new figure of twelve chosen men, which after his resurrection is continued in the min-istry of those who are apostles, that is, "sent." . . . Jesus gave his power to the apostles in such a way that he established their ministry as a continuation of his own mission. "Whoever receives you receives me," he says to the Twelve (Mt 10:l&40). The Apostles, according to Benedict, are drawn "into a community of mission with Jesus" that is sacramental because it transcends human powers: Of themselves, on their own resources, they can do nothing that aposdes ought to do. How on their own could they say, "Your sins are forgiven you"? How could they say, "This is my body"? How could they impose hands and say, "Receive the Holy Spirit"? . ¯ . Their "total inability" draws them into a com-munity of mission with Jesus. A ministry of such a sort, in which the human being on the basis of divine communication acts and gives what can never be given o~ done on the basis of human resources, is in the church’s tradition called a sacrament. If in its usage the church calls priesdy ordination a sacrament, this is the meaning that is intended: This human being is in no way performing works which issue from natural ability or talent . The power Christ gave to reconcile, shepherd, and teach is continued unchanged in successors, but they are true succes-sors only if "they persevere in the teaching of the aposdes" (Ac 2:42).41 According to Dulles, the ordained "receive their gifts through apostolic succession in office, which confers upon them the sacred character of order, empowering them to act in the name of the church and in the name of Christ as head of the church. This double empowerment., comes to clearest expression in worship.’’42 69.2 2010 Tripo_le * What Does It Mean to Be a Priest? 146 Notes 1 John Vianney’s anniversary was "an inspiration" for Benedict to inaugurate the Year for Priests (Address at Castel Gandolfo, 5 August 2009, , 17 August 2009. Vianney was born in 1786, became cur~ of Ars in 1818, died at Ars in 1859, and was canonized in 1925. 2 Address to the Congregation for the Clergy, 16 March 2009, (hereafter, Address, and noted in text). 3 Letter proclaiming a Year for Priests on the 150th anniversary of the "dies natalis" of the Cur~ of Ars, 16 June 2009, (here_after, Letter, and noted in text). 4 Homily, 19 June 2009, , (hereafter, Homily, and noted in text). s Benedict is citing Vianney from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1589. 6 For Vianney, without priests there would be no church, for through their proclamation of the Word and administration of the sac-raments priests produce the church. Vatican 11 says, "Priests. establish and build up the People of God," Presbyterorum ordinis (PO) §4. 7 Benedict XvI, General Audience, 1 July 2009, www.vatican.va (hereafter, Audience, and noted in text). s Catherine Fournier, "Saint John Vianney," downloaded 9/30/2009. 9 Synod 1990/Archbishop Pilarczyk, "Defining the Priesthood," Origins 20/19 (18 October 1990): 299 (italics in original). 10 "Indelible character" goes back to St. Augustine, but became church teaching with the Council of Trent (1545-1563): "In the sac-rament of orders, . . . a character is imprinted which can neither be blotted out nor taken away" (DS §§1767 & 1774, The Church Teaches §§843 & 847. ,1 Origins 20/19, pp. 299-300. 12 Avery Dulles SJ, The Priestly Office: A Theological Reflection (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), p. 14 (hereafter, Dulles). 13 Dulles, pp. 14-15. 14 Dulles, p. 36. ~s Dulles, p. 14. 16 Dulles, pp. 14-15. 17 David N. Power OMI, "Representing Christ in Community and Sacrament," in Being a Priest Today, ed. Donald J. Goergen op Review for Religious (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 97-123, at 99 and 101. According to Power, in Thomas "the accent is on the power that the priest receives from Christ, and on the words that he pronounces, rather than on any personal likeness of the priest to Christ" (p. 122 n. 5). ,8 Power, pp. 101-102. ~9 Dulles, p. 3 7. 20 Dulles, pp. 39-40 & 36. 2t Dulles, p. 40. "For it is one and the same victim: he who now makes the offering through the ministry of priests and he who then offered himself on the cross; the only difference is the manner of the offering" (DS §1743, Church Teaches §749). 22 Dulles, pp. 11, 40. 23 Quotations are from Walter M. Abbott, Documents of Vatican 11. 24 Abbott, Documents, p. 27 n. 30. z5 Dulles, p. 8. 26 Dulles, pp. 8-9. 27 Dulles, pp. 9-10. 2s Dulles, p. 32. 29 Dulles, pp. 9-11. 30 See also Dulles, pp. 1 & 32-33. 3, See the Latin and English in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner SJ, vol. 2, p. 669 (hereafter, Tanner). 32 Tanner 2:763; see Dulles, p. 16. 33 See Dulles, 16-17. 34 Dominicae Cenae (On the Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist), 24 February 1980, §2; Dulles, p. 33. 3~ Jean Galot S.l, Theology of the Priesthood, trans. Roger Balducelli OSFS (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), p. 49. 36 Dulles, p. 48. LG uses the concept of the Shepherd both in the all-inclusive way (bishops preside "over the flock whose shepherds they are, as teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship, and officers of good order" §20) and in the limited way (as rulers of their flock): see LG §28 above, and "bishops. undertake Christ’s own role as Teacher, Shepherd, and High Priest" (LG §21). 37 Benedict XV/, "General Audience," 24 June 2009, 165 69.2 2010 Douglas ¯ Medieval Nuns of Morienval 166 the llth century through the 17th. I walk slowly up the nave toward the altar, imagining all those faithful women who knelt in this space, singing the Divine Office through the days and nights and down the years. Beyond the small choir in the rounded apse flows a narrow, elegant ambulatory. There is barely room for one person to walk this slender curving aisle around behind the altar. Standing there, I look up. There, straight above my head, is what I have come so far to see. A kind of wobbly "X" in rounded stone, support-ing the vault of the easternmost bay. Looking more like the ropes of modeling clay my daughters once rolled between their childish hands than anything else, it is in some ways an unprepossessing sight. Yet that "X" marks a momentous intersection in the history of architecture: it is the first ribbed vault known in Europe, supporting the hemispherical curve of the first ambulatory.! An unprecedented experiment in stone and space, a daring innovation in the strength and flexibility of design without which the vast and lofty Gothic cathedrals would never have been able to raise their (far more famous) heads. The Romanesque churches of the early middle ages were built in the style of imperial Rome: ponderous, inflexible, fortress-like,2 their heavy vaulted roofs sup-ported by thick walls unrelieved by more than the bare minimum of windows. The effect can be one of heavy, even oppressive, darkness and weight. As the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (who gloried in the later Gothic style) bluntly put it, "Romanesque architecture is always more or less a cave or a heavy crypt. Art is a prisoner here, lacking air.’’3 The heavy barrel vaulting of the Romanesque Review for Religious churches depended entirely on the inert massiveness of the walls to hold it up. In distinct opposition to this ancient system of static stability, the genius and the strength of the new style (which would become known as Gothic4) depended on dynamic freedom and balanced tensions, on designated parts of the structure taking on the stresses of others for the sake of equilibrium,s The strength and beauty of soaring light-filled Gothic architecture lies precisely in this brilliant inno-vation of taking the weight of the vaulting off the walls, and placing it instead on a bracing framework of arches and piers. It is this exoskeleton of supporti,ng stone that permitted the builders to open the walls, let in the light, lift the ceil-ings to undreamt-of heights. Releasing art from its prison and giving it air. It was the diagonal rib in ceiling vaults that made this unprecedented transition possible. Not only did the diagonal rib, leaping catty-cor-ner from one angle of a vault to the other, inaugurate hitherto-unheard-of flexibility in the height and place-ment of the arches it joined; it provided unprecedented strength. That wobbly "X" in the ceiling at Morienval pre-saged a whole new day for architecture--taking the weight from the vault onto its own narrow shoulders. No longer did all the weight of the stone vault overhead That wobbly "X" in the ceiling at Morienval presaged a whole new day for architecture-taking the weight from the vault onto its own narrow shoulders. 167 69.2 2010 Douglas ¯ Medieval Nuns of Morienval 168] flow down through the entire surface to the walls on the side: now most of the weight could be channeled to the four corners of the vault and thence down the piers to the ground. And it all began, very quiedy, right here where I am standing. Apparently some time about the year 1120,6 the east end of the abbey church at Morienval collapsed. In order to rebuild the apse and strengthen it at the same time, the abbess and her master builder (neither of whose names have come down to us) decided to try something new. As we know nothing of this abbess or her master builder, we are free to speculate about them--to let our imaginations wonder what in their lives had brought them to that time and place. Standing there behind the altar, I picture them (more than eight centuries ago) standing before me in the nave, heads bent over a drawing. The master builder gestures toward the ruined east end, and then points to the plan before them. The abbess, hands tucked into the sleeves of her habit, nods with interest. Probably he explains to her that simply replacing the fallen parts of the apse in the old way will not be enough to ensure its safety. There is not enough space, on the eastern edge of the litde promontory on which the church stands, to build the thickness of wall that the weight of the roof requires--which is why it has collapsed in the first place. But he has an idea for a way to build both strength and ,beauty into the new construction. No one has tried it before, but he thinks it will work. In Paris, young builders have been talking about new possibilities for solving this kind of structural problem. Review for Religious Men who went on the First Crusade, marching through Syria on their way to the Holy Land to liber-ate it from the Moslem Turks, have come home telling of the magnificent ribbed vaults and pointed arches of the mosques they saw. Some of the victorious crusad-ing noblemen had brought captured masons home with them--one of them was even now architect to Henry I, the Norman king of England.7 I imagine that the abbess was fairly new to her abba-tial role. Perhaps the elderly abbess she had recently succeeded had, in her leadership, valued inert stability and rigid adher-ence to known forms more than innovative change or freedom. But this new abbess (young in her office perhaps but, in my mind, wise in the Rule) knows from her own life as a Benedictine nun, and her respon-sibilities as abbess, the importance of flexibility to living strength. She knows all about taking the heavy burdens of leadership onto her own narrow shoulders and bearing them all the way down to the ground; she is already familiar with the need in community to balance stresses to achie.ve equilibrium. In my imagination, in that holy place, the mas-ter builder proposes, and the abbess understands and agrees. X The end support of one of the worn oak choir stalls--perhaps the abbess’s own chair--has been This new abbess~ knows from her own life as a Benedictine nun, and her responsibilities as abbess, the importance of flexibility to living strength. 169 69.2 2010 Douglas ¯ Medieval Nuns of Morienval 170] carved into the semblance of a nun, straight and calm and strong. I rest my hand lightly, respectfully, on that small oaken head for a moment. I would like to think it is a memorial to that visionary abbess whose name we do not know--whose daring experiment to keep her community’s chapel strong became the first step in the journey to a whole new way of imagining--and building--church. I like to think she was, in a quiet and anonymous way, the forebear of Pope John xxIII who, when asked why the Second Vatican Council was necessary, stood up and opened a window in the meeting room, declar-ing that he wanted to throw open the windows of the church, to let in light and air. In the history of medieval architecture, the signifi-cance of Morienval is often relegated to a footnote, or treated dismissively, called "far from elegant., groping ¯ . . lacking skill and technique.’’8 Praising the (undeni-ably glorious) perfection of the double ambulatory at Saint-Denis, built at least twenty years after Morienval’s innovation, one historian sniffs that the ingenious and subtle use of the ribs and the vaulting at Saint-Denis "is in marked contrast to the treatment of the ambulatory in the church of Nlorienval.’’9 "There, the diagonal ribs curve in space," the writer admits, "but the point of the crossing does not coincide with the middle of the vault." In other words, it wobbles. Of course it does. Even the most remarkable child learning to walk---even the most amazing journey--must begin with a single step. And that first step is invariably both momentous and uncertain. That diagonal rib at Morienval had no antecedent. It was the first of its kind. All the beauty and power Review for Religious and height and breadth of the new style, brought to full flower at Saint-Denis and Chartres and elsewhere in France, was born at Morienval. The flexibility and strength inherent in that first stone rib--the visionary courage and openness to change of that 12th-century abbess--as well as historical obscu-rity and lack of credit--are all qualities long associated with women religious. Somehow I am not surprised that Gothic architec-ture was born in a company of women. Before I leave, I pause in the chapel of the north. I light a candle and say a prayer of thanks for all those unsung friends of God who are willing to try a new thing. To get something a little bit wrong, in order that others might get it wonderfully right. X Notes ~ Otto von Simson, The Gothic Catbedrak Origins of GotbicArcbitecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (New York: Bollingen Foundation,1956; Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 6 n. 11. 2 Charles Moore, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture (New York: Macmillan Co., 1904), p. 30. 3 Auguste Rodin, Cathedrals of France, trans. Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler (first published in France in 1914; revised edition published Redding Ridge, Connecticut: Black Swan Books, 1981). 4 The term "Gothic" developed in the late Renaissance as a term of contempt: Vasari (1511-1574) the Florentine historiographer seems to have coined it to compare the bad barbaric forms with the good clas-sical ones. Julien Chapuis, "Gothic Art," in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (’New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-). (October 2002). s For a famous technical description of this difference, approvingly quoting the insight of the 19th-century architectural historian Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, see Moore, Development, pp. 7-8. 6 The precise date has long been debated, and cannot be known with certainty, but scholarly consensus puts the ambulatory’s cross- 171 69.2 2010 Douglas ¯ Medieval Nuns of Morienval ribbed vault "soon after 1122" according to Otto von Simson’~ classic work, The Gothic Cathedral; see p. 6 n. I 1, cited above. See also Moore, Development, p. 59, who puts the Morienval innovations down to "the end of the llth or the beginning of the 12th century." 7 Gordon Strachan, Chartres: Sacred Geometry, Sacred Space (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2003), pp. 18-19. 8 Arthur Porter, Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2, Normandy and the lie de France (first published in 1909, reprinted New York: Hacker Art Books, 1966), p. 72. 9 Whitney Stoddard, Art and Architecture in Medieval France (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 108. Photosynthesis Seeing slanting sunrays Shining on tree branches Permeate the leaves With O! bright light So leaf and light are one; I sense how My own spread-out soul By photosynthesis Of Spirit’s light Is so transformed That God and she are one. Mary Alban Bouchard CSJ 172 Review for Religious JULIET MOUSSEAU God’s Irresistible Call Invites Us to Hope "Why do you want to become a nun?" I have been asked that question dozens of times over the past three and a half years, since I began discernment with the Religious of the Sacred Heart. From the outside it looks like a strange choice to some. After all, I had the beginnings of a successful career, one that I really love, and felt sure of finding a like-minded man with whom I could make a family. I do not doubt that I could. The comfortable house, nice car, dog, and then children following a beautiful Catholic wedding--we would live happily ever after. So why would I choose religious life? I usually give the reasons that people on the "outside" understand. I am attracted to the life given in service to others. I am a theologian and a professor--things I certainly can be as a Juliet Mousseau writes from 541 South Mason Road; St. Louis, Missouri 63141. 173 69.2 2010 Mousseau * God’s Irresistible Call Invites Us~to Hope laywoman. Yet, in my colleagues who are religious, I can see a greater freedom to devote themselves more com-pletely to the task of professor and scholar. Religious seem to have more time, more energy, more compassion to give to their students, and more room for research, not to mention the other ministries they tend to take on. Maybe it is the "magis" of my Jesuit education that leads me to appreciate that "more." I know in my own life that a relationship with a .particular person takes a great deal of time and energy (both lovingly and joyfully given). I can only imagine that having chil-dren would turn my energy completely toward them, as is only right. Being a reli-gious allows me to love a broader world, to move beyond the confines of my home in order to share Christ’s love with all those around me. Religious life also entails the benefit of living in community. Most single or married people understand the benefits of shared household responsibilities and the companionship that comes with communal life. I lived alone for nine years. I loved living alone, but, now that I have lived in community for some six months, I am not sure I ever want to live alone again. Part of my reason for choosing the Religious of the Sacred Heart in particular is that they tend to live in communities. There is great beauty in communal living, bound by a common sense of mission and of relationship with Christ. Beyond the practicalities which help with daily life (such as shared responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, and finances), there are the spiritual and personal benefits of living with Choosing religious life means making prayer my primary commitment. Review for Religious people who care about your well-being and pray with and for you. I have been blessed over the past months with love and compassion beyond my expectations. A third reason for becoming a religious is the high value placed on individual and communal prayer. If I am not steeped in prayer, I cannot give of myself as completely as I feel called to do. Many people consider prayer to be important, but how many of those same people do not take the time to pray, citing a lack of time and other pressing commitments? Choosing religious life means making prayer my primary commitment. By placing my relationship with God first in my life, I can more easily form loving relationships with those around me. Additionally, living among other women of the same mindset encourages me to be a more prayer-ful person. These are great reasons to ioin a religious com-munity, and there are others that I can list--such as a desire to share in the mission of bringing the love of Christ to the world, or to live by prayer and the gospel in a more profound way and thus to spread the gospel by the example of my life, or even to step away from the material world in order to focus on more important spiritual goods. All of these are important reasons for the persistence of religious life in our world, even and perhaps especially today. In reality, though, I am here because I heard God calling me along this unexpected path. Throughout my theological studies, my peers and professors asked whether I was becoming a nun. I always said no, without thinking, and I was often a bit horrified. I knew very few nuns or sisters at that point, and so I had no role models, no examples of women religious in higher edu-cation that would have drawn me to religious life. My 69.2 2010 Mousseau * God’s Irresistible Call Invites Us to Hope 176 perception of nuns was colored by movies and television (one of my mother’s favorite movies was The Sound of Music), by a popular culture that often portrays reli-gious women as subservient and sometimes silly. I never thought seriously about entering religious life until after I completed my education, in which many of my pro-fessors were religious men (Jesuits and Franciscans). I saw in those men healthy examples of religious life, lived joyfully. I began slowly to realize that the lives of women religious were (or could be) similar to their lives of community, dedication, and service. Yet I know that, even having heard a call from God, taking the step into religious life is somewhat risky. As I was applying for entry, a month or two before the decision was to be made, the Apostolic Visitation was announced. At the time, I was working with a sister who immediately became upset about it. It certainly gave great anxiety to many who read about it, in part because so litde was explained and the goals were, and perhaps remain, unclear. Many comments are those of doom and gloom--that religious life might change, that it needs to change in order for young women to find it attractive, that "the Vatican" will force women to do one thing or another. Honesdy, hearing unfounded worries was more penitential for me than the initial announcement. Of course, the visitation is not the only cause of concern for a woman in the American Catholic Church today. The investigation of LCWR, the censuring of religious women catechists and .theologians, and the polarization of different groups within the church are also trying issues. Despite such turmoil, I still feel called by God, and I have not turned away. I still recognize the grace and blessing of this life, even as I only begin to live it out. Review for Religious Several reasons for hope come to mind as I reflect on this decision. My clearest sense of hope is this: the call that I feel is irresistible. Once I recognized it, I could not ignore it. I am deeply and intimately called into a relation-ship .with God, and I would deeply regret moving on with life without at the very least trying on religious life. So much beauty can be found in this life, things .that I would never have con-sidered otherwise. The process of discernment and the beginnings of formation have been incredibly blessed times for me. My hope lies in this strong sense of call. If I am being called by God to this life, I have no doubt that other women are being called too. Perhaps we need to develop our ability to hear the Voice of God in our lives. We--as Americans, as Catholics--need to open our hearts a litde wider and listen a little more closely. Second, I have hope in the recognition that choosing religious life today is not about the institutional church, but rather it is about my relationship with Jesus. The church, because it is full of human beings, has human failings and foibles. Religious life may be an integral part of the institutional church, but, in choosing to live as a religious, I am choosing to live out my life ~i¢ith Christ. This life is about a relationship with God and my own capacity to bring the love of Jesus to the world around me. In that sense my personal mission is in unity with the mission of the church. When that sense of mission The process of discernment and the beginnings of formation have been incredibly blessed times for me. 177 69.2 2010 Mousseau * God’s Irresistible Call Invites Us to Hope 178 comes to the fore, the fears of apostolic visitations and theological investigations seem less significant--after all, I know that the Spirit of God is guiding our church, even in the trying moments, and that Jesus’ love will ultimately win out (in fact, it already has won). My third hope is in the changing face of religious life. I know that religious life has to change to con-tinue in this world. How it will change is yet unknown. As a historical theologian, I know that the church has changed throughout the centuries, and I believe that as it changes it emerges stronger than it was before. We cannot say what religious life in the future will look like, but we are already seeing some of the trends: dialogue and collaboration among orders, intercongre-gational planning and formation, religious women in different types of ministry, and even different living arrangements. So many changes followed the Second Vatican Council, and those changes continue to shape and reshape the lives of women religious today. Our rapidly changing world also means that those being called to religious life are a changing demo-graphic. Women are making life decisions later, when careers have already been established, so it is no surprise that entrants to religious life are likewise more mature. With age come experience, careers, and the compli-cations of family, economics, and relationships, all of which must be addressed. Finally, I see good things coming from the Apostolic Visitation, despite our fears and the open possibilities. Our own congregation is using this time to reflect on our constitutions and renew our sense of commitment to them. The joy with which my sisters embrace this life shows in their reflections on our constitutions. Even after decades of living as religious, they continue to find Review for Religious new expressions of their mission and new energy. The message, then, is enduring. I have hope that further good will come of the visitation as well: that those in church leadership will have a more complete picture of the manifold gifts religious sisters lovingly give to the people of the United States in their variety of ministries. Certainly the popular reaction to the news coverage of the visitation has been one of overwhelming support for women religious. Our world needs women and men who give them-selves in service for the love of Jesus Christ. We need those who can help us find the wholeness and the joy that comes from living according to the image of God that lies within us. I choose religious life because the image of God within me calls irresistibly to a life of prayer, service to others, and community. My hope is that other women and men will open their hearts to hear God’s call. 179 69.2 2010 VINCENT L. STRAND To Imitate the Angels’ Purity: Ignatius’s and John Paul’s Counsel 8o] Sgt. Ignatius of Loyola expounds Jesuit life and overnance in great detail in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The document runs to a hefty 827 paragraphs, at times attending to such minutiae as what to wear while sleeping and what ornamentation candles presented to benefactors should have. Yet, concerning the vow of chastity specifically, Ignatius is reticent, say-ing only, "What pertains to the vow of chastity requires no interpretation, since it is evident how perfectly it should be preserved, by endeavoring to imitate therein the purity of the angels in cleanness of body and mind.’’1 In his day and long afterwards, Ignatius was certainly not alone in such brevity. In modern times, however, Ignatius’s brief statement has led to various interpreta-tions. Some have praised it. Others have accused him of hyper-spiritualization, dualism, and impracticality. V’mcent L. Strand SJ entered the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus in 2005 and is in first studies at Fordham University. His address is Ciszek Hall; 2502-06 Belmont Avenue; Bronx, New York 10458. Revie~ for Religious In our day, the church’s understanding of human sex-uality has undergone significant development, notably in Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.2 Being well grounded in the tradition and also creative and origi-nal, Theology of the Body opens up new vistas in theology while breathing new life into the church’s tradition. In this article I will offer a reading of Ignatius’s counsel on chastity in the light of Theology of the Body. I hope to show that Ignatius’s prescription is not dualistic or anti-body, but instead calls celibate persons to witness to the eschatological reality of divine union through an integral redemption of their body and soul. Theology of the Body First I offer a word of background. People often think that Theology of the Body is concerned principally with matters of sexual ethics. The scope of John Paul II’s project, however, is much broader. Theology of the Body invites us to consider the fundamental question "What does it mean to be human?" by reflecting upon our status as embodied creatures made in the image and likeness of God. As the pope explains, The body., and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible real-ity of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it. In man, created in the image of God, the very sacramentality of cre-ation, the sacramentality of the world, was thus in some way revealed. In fact through his bodiliness. ¯ man becomes a visible sign of the economy of Truth and Love, which has its source in God himself and was revealed already in the mystery of creation.3 To pursue such a project, the pope devotes the first half of Theology of the Body to developing what he calls an 181 69.2 2010 Strand ¯ To Imitate the Angels’ Purity "adequate anthropology." In doing so, he offers a posi-tive Christian response to the gamut of anthropological errors modern philosophy has produced. He does this through a scriptural meditation that considers human-ity in three states: the original state before Adam and Eve’s fall, the historical state after the fall, and, finally, the eschatological state of heaven.4 The second half of Theology of the Body applies this anthropology to questions of sacrament in general and marriage in particular. 182] Ignatius and the Body One of the pervasive anthropological errors which John Paul attempts to overcome in Theology of the Body is the dualism that understands the human person to be his or her soul, rather than the soul and body together. In that view, the soul runs the body as a driver handles an automobile. A frequent corollary of this dualism is that the body is evil, tempting the soul to let its ideals become soiled. When Christians adopt such a dualism, they often consider the spiritual life to be a flight from earthy reality to a realm of pure spirit. Does Ignatius manifest this anti-body dualism? From his recommendation that human beings imitate angels, who are pure spirits, the answer seems to be yes. However, if we consider the whole of the constitutions and Ignatius’s spirituality--especially as it appears in the Spiritual Exercises--we shall see that Ignatius, especially for a Christian of his day, shows a notable apprecia-tion and concern for the body. In the constitutions he devotes an entire chapter to "The Preservation of the Body," addressing such matters as how Jesuits should eat, sleep, and exercise and in general take care of their bodies. The gist of the chapter is in its first sentence: "Just as an excessive preoccupation with the needs of the Review for Religious body is blameworthy, so too a proper concern for the preservation of one’s health and bodily strength for the divine service is praiseworthy and should be exercised by all" [292]. Parting with a common practice of religious communities of his day, Ignatius does not prescribe any obliga-tory corporal penances for Jesuits--a practice that might be expected of someone who con-sidered the body to be evil [8 & 580]. Ignatius believed that God is to be found in created things, as is seen in the two "book-end" meditations of the Spiritual Exercises. In the first, the Principle and Foundation, Ignatius says that cre-ated things are cre-ated for human beings to help them attain the end for which they were created: to praise, reverence, and serve God and save their souls,s In the final meditation of the Exercises, the Contemplation to Attain Love, Ignatius has the retreatant reflect upon "how God dwells in creatures; in the elements, giving them existence; in the plants, giving them life; in the animals, giving them sen-sation; in human beings, giving them intelligence" (SpEx §§235-236). As is seen in this contemplation, Ignatius’s spirituality is highly incarnational. This incarnational dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises flows into the man- One of the pervasive anthropological errors which John Paul attempts to overcome in Theology of the Body is the dualism that understands the human person to be his or her soul, rather than the soul and body together. 183 69.2 2010 Strand ¯ To Imitate the Angels’ Purity ner in which Ignatius structured the apostolic life of the Society of Jesus. Jesuits were not to spend their time in hermitages or monasteries, but rather in the market-places, universities, and even royal courts of renaissance Europe.6 In forming his religious order in this fashion, Ignatius understood himself to be following the example of Christ, the Word Incarnate, who descended into the drama of human history. Ignatius was convinced that it was amidst this drama--in the concrete, material reality of everyday life--that God was to be found. 184 Celibacy Far from casting him outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity as an anti-body dualist, Ignatius’s counsel places him in the mainstream of the church’s ascetical tradition. Both patristic and medieval authors frequendy use the phrase "angelic life" as a way to designate the religious life of monks who were thought to imitate the angels by their chastity.7 Yet,Ignatius’s counsel on chastity has an even earlier origin: Jesus’ words to the Sadducees, "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Mr 22:30; see Mk 12:25, Lk 20:36). Jesuit commentaries on the constitutions have interpreted Ignatius’s counsel on chastity in the light of this verse,s Ignatius’s reference to the angels should be understood first and foremost in the light of those words in Matthew. Jesuits are to be "like the angels" inasmuch as they are unmarried. Thus, Ignatius’s reference to the angels should be understood chiefly as a call to celibacy. John Paul’s commentary on Matthew 22:30 can help to broaden our understanding of this call to celibacy, particularly how the celibate vocation relates to the married vocation (TOB 64-69). He makes four points: Review for Religious First, there will not be marriage in heaven, although human beings will continue to be both male and female. Second, Jesus’ statement that the blessed will be "like angels" can be understood in the Pauline sense of the "spiritualization of the body" (see 1 Co 15:44), which means that the human person’s body and soul will be in perfect harmony with each other. Third, since this spiri-tualization refers to the indwelling of the Spirit in the redeemed person, we can als0 speak of the "divinization" of human beings in heaven, understood as a participation in the very life of God. Fourth, this divinization is radi-cally communal, as the blessed will participate in a perfect communion of persons without losing their own selfhood. Concerning this fourth point, the pope invites us to "think of the reality of the ’other world’ in the categories of the redis-covery of a new, perfect subjectivity of each person and at the same time of the rediscovery of a new, perfect inter-subjectivity of all" (TOB 68.4). In John Paul’s presentation, two points should be kept in mind when considering Ignatius’s words about chaste celibacy. First, inasmuch as celibacy anticipates the life of heaven, celibacy does not call one to withdraw into oneself, but rather invites a person to a life-giving com-munion with others. As the pope teaches, celibacy is "for the kingdom"; it is fruitful and leads to "a new and even Inasmuch as celibacy anticipates the life of heaven, celibacy does not call one to withdraw into oneself, but rather invites a person to a life-giving communion with others. 69.2 2010 Strand ¯ To Imitate the Angels’ Purity fuller form of intersubjective communion with others" (TOB 77.2). Second, the married and celibate states are not in competition with each other, but rather they comple-ment each other. The pope explains that marriage is an image of our union with God in heav(n and also of the mutual love which all the blessed will experience there. Celibacy, on the other hand, anticipates this union here and now, as the pope explains in developing Matthew 19:11-12 (TOB 73-81). John Paul makes clear that celibacy is not the natu-ral state for people in this world. The celibate life is not recommended for all, but only for those called to it. Celibacy should not be seen as disparaging marriage or the body as things that are bad. Ra~ther, it is precisely through the renunciation of marriage that the celibate witnesses to the beauty and value of marriage by ori-enting it to its deepest core, the sincere gift of self, expressed in what John Paul calls the "spousal meaning of the body.’’9 In this way, there is a complementarity between the vocations of celibacy and marriage; they complete and interpenetrate each other. 186 Purity and the Heavenly Life A careful reading of the Jesuit constitutions high-lights further dimensions of the call to celibacy. Ignatius does not ask that the angels qua angels be imitated, but instead that the angels’ purity be imitated. Here too Theology of the Body can vivify our reading of Ignatius. John Paul offers an extensive discourse titled "Purity as ’Life according to the Spirit’" (TOB 50-57). The pope notes that the term "purity" means, first of all, the opposite of dirty. So, when Ignatius writes "to imitate therein the purity of the angels in cleanness of body and mind," we can understand the words "purity" (puritas) Review for Religious and "cleanness" (munditia) to be synonymous. John Paul uses a Pauline understanding of purity to interpret Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. The pope inter-prets Paul to have two understandings of purity, one general, the other specific. In a general sense, purity can refer to everything that is morally good and impurity to everything that is morally bad. From 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, however, John Paul develops a second, more spe-cific meaning of purity. Here purity means contributing to the human per-son’s sanctification. Purity, the pope says, is both a natu-ral virtue and a gift of the Spirit. As a natural ability or attitude, purity is a variant of the virtue of temperance, the ability to master and overcome lustful passions and hold back the impulses of desires. At the same time, purity in a Pauline sense means not only negatively abstaining from sinful acts, but also positively keeping one’s body in holiness and reverence.~° In this sense, purity should be understood not only as a natural virtue or as an ability of the human person’s subjective faculties, but also as a charismatic gift of the Spirit. When purity as a virtue is infused with the gift of the Spirit, John Paul says, human beings are able to glorify God in their very bodies. He explains: "Purity as a virtue or ability of ’keeping one’s own body with holiness and reverence,’ allied with the gift of piety as a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in the ’temple’ of the body, causes in the body such a fullness of dignity in interpersonal relations that God himself is thereby glori-fied. Purity is the glory of the human body before God" (TOB 57.3). Purity, therefore, should not be understood only as a virtue of resisting lustful desires. Rather, it is the very transformation of these desires so that one’s body is 187 69.2 2010 Strand * To Imitate the Angels’ Purity In asking celibate persons to imitate the angels" purity, Ignatius can be understood to be calling us not simply to avoid sin, but rather to :be sanctifying our concupiscent desires, working with God for our body’s redemption. ,188 filled with holiness and reverence. In this sense, purity involves a transformation by which Christians begin to live the heavenly, eschatological state even here and now in their earthly lives. In heaven human persons no longer will need the natural virtue of purity as a deriva-tive of temperance because they will not have to resist disordered desires. These desires themselves will have been redeemed. John Paul calls this sanctifi-cation "the redemption of the body." Seeing purity in this light, we understand why Ignatius calls us to imitate the "purity of the angels." He takes the angels as models of purity for us, not because they resist the impulses of lustful pas-sions, but because they do not even have such disordered drives. The angels can be consid-ered as analogous to Adam and Eve before the fall, when they had a perfect harmony of body and soul, without concupiscence. The more important analogy, however, is that our call to be like the angels is a call to be like our future selves in heaven, when our sanctification will be complete and we will no longer experience concupis-cence. We will then experience the redemption of the body. In asking celibate persons to imitate the angels’ purity, Ignatius can be understood to be calling us not simply to avoid sin, but rather to be sanctifying our Review for Religious concupiscent desires, working with God for our body’s redemption. Celibate persons are to witness in their very lives on earth to this eschatological call. Consecrated celibate persons serve as a special reminder to the whole Christian community that our final end is heaven. Integral Redemption of Body and Soul As already noted, Ignatius’s appeal to the angels parallels Jesus’ response to the Sadducees that those in the resurrection are "like angels in heaven." John Paul understands this verse to refer to t