THE BEST OF THE REVIEW --- 2: PATHS OF RENEWAL FOR RELIGIOUS

CONTENTS

Editor's Foreword
Introduction: Religious Life: Act of Hope, Challenge to Human Weakness by David L. Fleming SJ

I. Religious Charism and Consecration

Christianizing Religious Life by Agnes Cummingham SSCM
Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today by Stephen Tutas SM
Discipleship: Root Model of the Life Called Religious by Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ
The Call to Religious Life by John R. Sheets SJ
The Charism and Identity of Religious Life by Michael J. Buckley SJ
The Primordial Mystery of Consecration by John R. Sheets SJ

II. Religious Vows

A. Chastity

Living Consecrated Celibacy Today by John C. Futrell SJ
Consecrated Celibacy: Gift and Challenge by Mary Ann Hoope BVM
Poverty, Time, Solitude: A Context for Celibate Lifestyle by Anthony Wieczorek OPream
Vowed Celibacy and Human Sexuality by M. Keith OSF

B. Poverty

Christian Is a Poor Man by Kevin O'Shea CSSR
Models of Poverty by Gerald R. Grosh SJ
The Center of Religious Poverty by Boniface Ramsey OP
The Price of Poverty by Donald Macdonald SMM

C. Obedience

Obedience to Mission by Barbara Hendricks :M:M
The Service of Religious Authority: Reflections on Government in the Review of Constitutions by Mary Linscott SND
Provincials as "Cultural Revolutionaries":: The Role of Provincials Today by Gerald A. Arbuckle SM
Christian and Religious Obedience by Brian O'Leary SJ

III. Religious Community

Individual Apostolates and Pluralism in Community Identity by John T. Ford CSC
The Character of a Religious Community by Edward A. Malloy CSC
Models of Community by Barbara Glendon OSU
Religious Life is a Communion by Ernest R. Falardeau SSS

IV. Religious Apostolate

A Theology of Social and Political Involvement for Religious by Philip S. Keane SS
A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life by Ladislas Orsy SJ
Toward a Sacramental and Social Vision of Religious Life by Philip J. Rosato SJ
Ministry Rooted to the Vows by Mary T. Ratigan CSJ
Religious Life as Acted Prophecy by James Fitz SM
Marginality and Religious Life: Belonging to a Group Called to Risk by Patrick Sean Moffett CFC

Postscript

Religious in Service of the Church by David L. Fleming SJ
On Dreaming Dreams, or the Making of a Revolution by Daniel F.X. Meenan SJ
Theological Reflections on Apostolic Religious Life by Mary Paul Ewen SSCJ, Silivia Vallejo ODN, and Paul Molinari SJ

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Vatican II's image of the "Pilgrim Church" (Lumen Gentium, Ch 7) has been a major catalyst in the Church's renewal efforts. Being a pilgrim Church puts us all on a journey. We have a direction, we know our destination, but the journey takes in many daylight hours and dark nights, many choices of roads, paths, and byways, and the necessity of always moving on into the new territory of our pilgrimage.

Religious life recognized as a special gift of God for the life and holiness of this pilgrim Church has had to follow its own paths of renewal since the call of Vatican II. The journey over the past twenty years has not been an easy one. From being a clearly defined "state of life according to the evangelical counsels" with its own call to perfection, religious life seemed to founder in the universal call to holiness that Vatican II emphasized for all Christians and which appeared to take away the "specialness" of being a religious. Works, too, previously identified as the activity of religious, were increasingly being done by the lay Christian and even by some secular arm of the civil society.

For religious, another path toward holiness was being pointed out --- one less involved with prayer structures and formulas, yet more demanding of a specifically contemplative quality of a person's life and of a community's activity. A depth of understanding the vows as our way of following Christ, viewed not so much as individual areas of obligation but as aspects of the same one reality --- the total gift of self to God --- had to be made one's own as a new source of empowerment. The sheer gratuitousness of the gift offered --- the special charism of invitation to follow Jesus more intimately --- called fort anew the realization of the joy of response which only a fee person could profess and live out publicly in community and in the Church.

Religious chastity had clearly to be an expression of personal celibate love lived out in relationships between individuals, within community and trough ministry. The religious meaning of poverty had to be tied to work and more concretely to the material poverty which was evidently dehumanizing an ever-growing number of the world's peoples. Religious obedience called for an adult relationship of responsible dialogue and ready service, necessary for bringing a certain order to a life and work motivated by love of Christ and his Church.

Religious living in community felt the strain of these many new ideas and approaches and new ways of acting. Different ways of living community sprang up, often in conjunction with new apostolates or new groupings of individual apostolates. Unity in the midst of different approaches became a major concern both for a life together and for a sense of corporate ministry.

Review for Religious has been privileged to record the kinds of struggles and the attempts to respond that have been a part of religious life on this recent part of the Vatican II journey. The articles collected in this volume represent a glimpse into various aspects of the understandings and practices of religious renewal. Each article contributes significantly to another step forward, another path taken, another vision of what is needed.

After an originally introductory article in which I try to present an overview of religious life in its principal ;elements as it emerges from Vatican II, I have grouped the articles under four major headings: 1) religious charism and consecration; 2) religious vows; 3) religious community; and 4) religious apostolate. Rather than choose a logical progression within each section, I have deliberately chosen to keep a chronological order of the articles since each author presents a way of thinking more consonant with a certain time period and points the say to later development. The postscript includes those articles selected for their challenge to the future.

I intend that this collection will be helpful for religious men and women to discover some sense of the way we have come on our pilgrimage. These articles talk about our lives in realistic and hopeful ways. Although they are about the recent past, they point the say to our continued journeying. I also hope that those younger in religious life will be able to hear a bit of the story or our latest journey, and they can enter into its appreciation through these readings. More generally, anyone who wants to understand a little better the renewal process in the lives of religious will, I believe, find insight through this collection.

I am grateful to each one of the authors who have cooperated with me in the editing of this book. I am especially indebted to the staff of the Review, who both encouraged me in this project and then had to assume much of the correspondence and the work because of my sabbatical absence during that stage of its preparation.

God's gift of religious life is very precious for the vitality of Church life. May we religious, keepers and transmitters of such a charism, continue to see the grace to understand more clearly the Lord's call in our time and to respond more eagerly to his lead on our journey together --- for the good of our Church and our world, and for our own good.

David L. Fleming SJ

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