Religion booknotes
Cunningham, Lawrence S.
his year marks the ninehundredth anniversary of the Cistercian order. As part of the celebration, Cistercian Publications, conspicuous for making available monastic sources and studies for...
...Daily drudgery is not sanctifying as such, but to neglect its essential place in our lives is to miss a rich resource for the development of a healthy Christian life...
...The final illustration is a photograph of a monk in the cloister of a Cistercian monastery near Dubuque, Iowa (New Melleray), suggesting the vigor of this form of monastic witness...
...Toward the end of his book, he writes that "fierce landscapes" offer a strange solace yet "they require...a discipline (or habitus) capable of disclosing meaning...
...Second, he is not afraid to intersperse his study with personal experience...
...Schickel himself went to Notre Dame in the 1940s and fell under the influence of the "Catholic Revival" that imbued him with a life-long passion for the ideas of Jacques Maritain on the relationship among art, life, and religious truth...
...Schickel represents a strain of religious art that reflects the thought of a certain strand of scholasticism as well as a "modernist" conviction whose other practitioners would include such artists as Eric Gill, Georges Roualt, and Marc Chagall...
...Riccards's measured criticisms will only be disputed by papal idolaters...
...When rapid change comes, some popes (John XXIII) accept it with much more equanimity than others (Paul VI...
...His grandfather was the architect reThe Art of William Schickel by Gregory Wolfe University of Notre Dame Press, $45, 161 pp...
...the way of darkness with the way of illumination...
...books on the papacy...
...Manuscripts Wanted MANUSCRIPTS WANTED...
...This book takes up each pope in turn, making an assessment of their diplomatic efforts ad extra as well as their care for and concern with internal church matters...
...Norris, of course, has gained national fame as an articulate writer on Christian spirituality...
...This book is a good "browse," a good "read," and a source of much useful, and sometimes odd, information...
...I did find this book a bit prolix...
...For additional information call 212-662-4200 or write COMMONWEAL, 475 Riverside Dr., Rm...
...His journeys, to the deserts of New Mexico and the Sinai, to mountains like Tabor and Sinai, are set against the drama of his mother's death...
...This is not a bloodless academic treatise...
...Monika Hellwig was the first lecturer, and a distinguished roster of American women have followed her to the podium to reflect on women and various aspects of religious belief and practice...
...Having lived in Rome at that time, I remember the adulation that the pope received, the obsessive scrutiny given to every one of his pronouncements, the curious stories about his mystical visions, the laments at his passing, and the ambivalent reputation he possesses today...
...Lane is too sophisticated a theologian to argue that a person lives exclusively in the realm of the negative search for God...
...Fully accredited by the Association of Theological Schools and by the Middle States Association of the Commission on Higher Education, the school offers three degree programs at the Masters level (M...
...Handsomely produced, the book features a useful essay by Gregory Wolfe...
...the way of image and symbol with the way of the aniconic...
...ALL TYPES...
...That minor cavil aside, one must praise Lane for an intelligent and deeply felt work...
...In addition, a candidate should hold an earned doctorate, preferably in theology, and be committed to promoting the significance of theology in the life of the church and its role in the preparation of the Catholic minister...
...Graduate School President WASHINGTON THEOLOGICAL UNION is a Roman Catholic graduate school of theology for ministry...
...Div., M.A...
...He has made his home in Loveland, Ohio, where, over a span of nearly fifty years, he has produced a stream of religious and liturgical art as well as designs for a number of striking churches, chapels, and public buildings...
...A candidate should also possess fine communication skills and a collegial administrative style for working with a full-time support staff of twenty and fulltime faculty of approximately twenty-five...
...Lane, a Presbyterian pastor and academic who teaches at Saint Louis University, is a hiker, climber, and camper...
...Nearly two hundred black-and-white illustrations, twenty-six color plates, a glossary of monastic terms, a good bibliography, and an index (alas, restricted to names and places) are included...
...Even the missionary activities of Catholicism, which were extensive in the last century, could not be disengaged from the colonialism of the time...
...12 word minimum...
...Finally, he has read widely and uses his reading to good purpose...
...My only criticism is that many of the illustrations lack information concerning the objects' actual dimensions Commonweal aj 8 October 23, 1998 (how large are the photographic illustrations of famous prisoners depicted on the wall of the reformatory...
...Against this interplay of movement and stasis he sketches out, but not systematically, that strand of theology which is called mystical, negative, "imageless," or apophatic...
...I would praise Lane's book for some precise merits...
...That paradox is, of course, held in tension in the monastic motto, "to work and to pray...
...This past year has seen a spate of Vicars of Chris~ Popes, Power, and Politics in the Modern World by Michael P. Riccards Crossroad, $29.95, 355 pp...
...It is to Lane's credit that he never reduces the apophatic tradition in Christianity to some kind of Plotinian abstractionism...
...My guess is that we will see even more thanks to the coming of the millennial events and the inevitable speculation about what kind of pope is needed and/or possible once John Paul II passes from the scene...
...Her Madeleva lecture, as the title indicates, is concerned with how the quotidian can be an opportunity for the cultivation of God's presence in the world...
...I was forcefully struck by Riccards's observation that when Pius XII died it was thought that his influence would last a hundred years...
...1-800-695-9599...
...Pius X's crusade against the modernists), he is not insensitive to the genuine accomplishments of those he criticizes...
...Riccards's review of the recent past helps put the exigent realities of today's church life into perspective...
...First, he writes of spirituality from within the Christian tradition and free of new-ageish fluff...
...Send notice of interest by November 1st to: Chair, Presidential Search Committee, Washington Theological Union, 6896 Laurel Street, NW, Washington, DC 20012...
...In general, despite a number of misprints and other minor errata, this is a readable work by an understanding but critical Catholic historian...
...It is a popular (which does not mean superficial) history of the papacy with a specific interest in how various popes exercised their authority...
...mon urgency...
...That fact may help explain why the popes in general put more energy into conserving the life of faith than into changing it...
...From Pius IX to Plus XI there was, for example, the so-called "Roman Question": namely, the relationship of the church to the newly independent Italian nation...
...This work is hea~ly dependent on secondary scholarship in English and does not reflect any archival work...
...Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...One fact that does stand out is that every pope shapes the college of cardinals, but rarely does his successor turn out to be a mirror image of himself...
...15 percent, 12 times...
...Discounts 5 percent, 3 times...
...It is a curious but true fact that the most engaging writers of serious Christian spirituality in this country (think of Annie Dillard, the late Denise Levertov, Patricia Hampl, Nancy Mairs, etc...
...She has an excellent reputation as a poet and critic as well...
...Advance payment required...
...Lane, it seems to me, has that discipline...
...10115...
...Riccards demonstrates how the internal life of the church is always bound up with the larger world...
...LASSIFIE| RATES: $1.10 per word...
...Discounts and monthly billing available for repeat advertisers...
...in Pastoral Studies), as well as a variety of continuing education oppor~nities including residential sabbatical programs for both men and women...
...Since 1985, Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, has sponsored an The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris Paulist, $5.95, 89 pp...
...William Schickel is a distinguished architect, sculptor, painter, and designer who comes from a family of artists...
...Subsidy Publisher with 75-year tradition...
...that as early as the reign of Pius XII there was some discussion about emending the rule of celibacy for all Western clergy...
...In that company one lists Kathleen Norris, whose writing comes near to classic status...
...405, N.Y., N.Y...
...sponsible for many buildings in New York City, including the church of Saint Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue...
...The Cistercians in Medieval Art by James France Cistercian Publications, $50, 278 pp...
...He is a powerful artist whose work I admire enormously...
...10 percent, 6 times...
...Riccards also argues that there are real perils for those who wish to reform from above...
...annual lecture to honor the memory of scholar and poet Sister Madeleva Wolff, the former president of that school...
...With the aid of the text we can soon distinguish choir monks from lay brothers, learn that the Cistercian custom of not wearing underclothes beneath the habit triggered much adolescent humor in the Middle Ages, and how long it took a reasonably accomplished copyist to make a full Bible (roughly two-and-ahalf years doing six pages a day...
...that Cardinal Wojtyla had a significant hand in crafting the encyclical Humanae vitae...
...Most of all, we get a fine account of one of the most important religious orders in the history of the Western church, as well as a lesson in how a historian can utilize the iconic record to illumine history without doing violence to the work of art...
...From her long-standing relationship to the Benedictines as an oblate, Norris has learned, as she puts it elegantly in this Commonweal 2 9 October 23, 1998 little book, that "it is a paradox of human life that in worship, as in human love, it is in the routine and the everyday that we find the possibilities for the greatest manifestation...
...France examines the salient features of monastic life (with separate chapters on the abbot, the monastic community, the development of lay brothers, and the communities of women), and ends with four chapters which explicate the liturgy, manual labor, sacred reading, and what the author calls "Edification, Entertainment, and Exposure...
...This essay on the medieval Cistercians and art features chapters that not only explicate the illustrations but give, in a quite readable fashion, the history of the order...
...As part of the celebration, Cistercian Publications, conspicuous for making available monastic sources and studies for well over a generation, has published James France's handsome and lavishly illustrated volume...
...and, frequently, dates of completion...
...Founded as an attempt to observe the Rule of Benedict in its primitive vigor, the order grew until houses of men and women dotted the medieval map from Eastern Europe to Portugal, from Italy to England, Ireland, and Scandinavia...
...In fact, it was over in two...
...He has a deep love for those two primordial loci of the biblical spiritual experience: the desert and the mountain, and he chronicles his visits to such places not as a tourist but as a spiritual seeker...
...Hence, in some very fine pages, Lane holds in tandem Mount Tabor, where Jesus is transfigured, and Mount Sinai, where Moses enters into the cloud to meet God...
...The only pope for whom he shows unreserved admiration is John XXIII, but Riccards is sympathetic to the excruciating dilemmas of those, like Benedict XV and Paul VI, who got caught up in huge cultural and political changes over which they had little control...
...are women who have been able to recoup traditional sources of Christian practice, refine them through their own experiences, and write about them in a compelling fashion...
...Loveland, of course, is the home of the Grail--the lay movement of women who encouraged the young Schickel to work in their art program and gave him his first important church design opportunity: to turn an old hay barn into a chapel...
...Norris, in short, provides a contemporary account of ordinary spirituality which has behind it a tradition with deep roots in the history of Christian ascesis...
...Its compelling message is distilled from a blend of personal autobiographical musings and wry humor, and deepened by a long engagement with monastic values...
...Belden Lane's deeply contemplative book features three interwoven strands which, though discrete, reflect a cornThe Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality by Belden C. Lane Oxford University Press, $25, 282 pp...
...In her final days she is befuddled by physical pain and the onset of Alzheimer's disease...
...I heard the shortened version of this lecture delivered to a near standingroom-only audience...
...In that same period, the popes could not be indifferent to the often ferociously anticlerical governments in traditionally Catholic countries like Spain, France, Germany, and Italy itself...
...The 1998 lecturer, Kathleen Norris, as best I can determine, is the first Protestant to be so honored...
...For that reason, what he has to say cuts close to the bone...
...It is salutary to be reminded that talk of a general church council predated Pope John XXIII...
...Schickel also did the renovation of the abbey church of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, and, in the bargain, designed the furnishings (made by the monks) in a style appropriate for the austere aesthetics of the Cistercian tradition...
...It is a mark of the vigor of the Cistercian monastic tradition that during Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's (1090-1153) lifetime, his monastery at Clairvaux founded sixty-eight daughter houses...
...Those buildings, as well as shrines, the church of a Benedictine priory, private homes, the beautiful "roofless church" in New Harmony, Indiana, and even the design for a minimum-security reformatory, are all lushly illustrated in this book...
...He did so in a stunning fashion...
...Even in those cases where his judgment is harsh (for example, Pius XII at the end of his papacy...
...Interested candidates for the position of President should possess a weU-developed theological vision of education for pastoral ministry in the church of the next millennium...
...Commonweal 3 0 October23, 1998...
...Some of the chapters have been previously published and perhaps as a consequence there is some repetition...
...The Cistercians in Medieval Art would make a fine addition to any school library and a perfect gift for those, like myself, who love things monastic...
...Norris makes the important point that Incarnation, after all, is concerned with our bodies and their needs...
...All of the great theologians, from Gregory of Nyssa through the Pseudo Dionysius to the great Carmelites like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, hold the way of negation in tension with the way of light...
...Riccards, whose previous work was on the leadership styles of the American presidency, offers a study of the modem papacy beginning with the long reign of Pius IX and ending with the current pontiff...
Vol. 125 • October 1998 • No. 18
