Writings and talks of a general interest
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THE
FOURTH MAN by ARMAND VEILLEUX Possibly you have noticed that the title of this article
was inspired by another article published a few years ago in the
magazine Christus.
[1]
The author of this article described a new
species of Christian which had just appeared and which he named
"the third man". This "third man" is the Christian
who, disappointed and worn out by the battles and oppositions
of the conservatives and progressives, withdraws, peacefully indifferent,
from ecclesiastical institutions. He does not give up his faith.
He is neither bitter nor aggressive. He does not even dispute
about the existing institutions and structures. He contents himself
with withdrawing, calmly and serenely, without even trying to
justify his attitude. The efforts others make to maintain or
adapt the existing institutions leave him utterly indifferent. Fr. Roustang did not put
a stamp of approval on this attitude. He simply recognized it.
He concluded, though, by the following warning: "If we do
not pay attention, and refuse to see the obvious, the unconcern
towards the Church which is already widespread will continue to
increase". It will not take on as in the past the form of
opposition or abandonment, but of a tranquil lack of interest
in this mountain of efforts which, they say, brings forth untiringly
only mice. In fact, since the article
was written, this "third man" attitude has continued
to spread. More and more numerous are the Christians we meet who
are not at all interested in the institutional Church and yet
who believe in Christ and, at least in some ways, in the Church,
and who have sometimes an authentic prayer life. Now we do not have to
be extremely perceptive to notice that this attitude has likewise
penetrated into our Order and implanted itself there. The need
for renewal is no longer doubted, and one does not have to dispute
to make people admit its legitimacy. On the other hand, a good
number of monks and nuns wonder why the renewal of a life of evangelical
simplicity requires so many General Chapters, commissions, sub-commissions,
dialogues, meetings, encounters and I don't know what else. They
realize the necessity-or rather, the inevitability-of all that;
but they are not interested. There must be General Chapters,
they say, but that is the abbots' business; they pay no attention.
Study sessions are necessary, they admit, but they leave the bustle
to those who are interested. They themselves intend to live their
monastic life in peace! It
is perhaps especially in the domain of the liturgy that this attitude
reveals itself most clearly. In the Order, as in the Church in
general, the renewal began with the liturgy. For a long time those
who felt the need for renewal but who refused to revolt had no
choice but to suffer in silence. This suffering proved to the
fruitful. The Council embarked us in a decisive manner on the
way to renewal. Tensions were then often created, in more than
one community, between juniors and seniors (these terms are not
always in direct relation with age) and between the partisans
of the preservation of traditions and the partisans of adaptation
(both sides invoke Tradition). This tension also bore fruit,
and the movement of renewal little by little imposed itself everywhere,
though at varying rhythms. This movement of renewal
required multiple efforts of research and dialogue. It gave birth
to many projects. It led to the creation of many new structures.
Many monks and nuns had founded great hopes on these efforts,
these trials, these modifications of structures. And finally they
find themselves the same as before: little or nothing has changed
in their prayer life. They had counted much on the introduction
of the vernacular into the liturgy, but they find themselves as
distracted and dry as before. They expected much from the renovation
and simplification of the rites, but they quickly became as accustomed
to the new ceremonies as to the old. Then, many lost confidence
in the renewal. They do not dispute. They know that the liturgical
rites must be purified, renewed, adapted. But that, they believe,
is the work of the liturgists. For them, it hardly has any importance.
They are not at all opposed to the idea that the liturgists should
do their work and compose new offices; but it is with an indifference
as complete as it is serene that they look upon these efforts
and accept these offices. This "third man"
attitude is a dangerous one which if it became permanent would
totally jeopardize the efforts for renewal in every domain. Moreover,
a glance at the life of the Church during these past few years
will prove that this attitude has produced nothing positive and
constitutes a blind alley. It will be useful to analyse it and
to try to detect the motives. The "third man" is firstly a disappointed man.
And the cause of that disappointment is that we have counted too
much on the reform of institutions and structures without being
sufficiently concerned about the conversion of hearts. At the
level of community life in general, we believed that the introduction
of structures of participation and dialogue would renew community
life; but we have had to admit that these structures foster the
expansion of the spirit of fraternity only where that spirit is
already present. In the domain of the liturgy, we had also anticipated
too much from the reform of rites and texts. We had forgotten
that if these reforms were necessary in order to foster the development
of a spirit of prayer, they were by themselves utterly incapable
of making up for the absence of that spirit, where it was absent. This disappointment underlying the attitude of the "third
man" is often accompanied by a veritable spiritual sloth,
an unavowed refusal to make the effort for interior conversion
which must go hand in hand with the exterior renewal. But even
graver is perhaps the fact that the "third man" often
takes a pharisaical attitude towards his brothers and sisters
who continue to believe in the necessity of an effort for renewal.
Unjustly, he includes in the same haughty look of pity both the
restless personalities who have found in the movements of reform
an outlet for their itch for activity and the authentic monks
and nuns who, looking first to the interior renewal, have applied
themselves courageously to the many tasks required to make possible
and further the interior renewal by an adequate reform of structures. At the level of community life in general, the effort
for renewal can only be the fruit of a common research. This research
necessitates a certain minimum of communication between brothers
and sisters and a certain minimum of exchanges of viewpoints and
dialogues. Our "third man" will then pretend to consider
these dialogues and communications as concessions made to today's
youth who, according to him, feel the need for interpersonal relations
and have not yet attained a sufficient degree of interiority.
He will concede this necessity to the "imperfect", while
he himself keeps his distance, saying that he has been called
by God to a more interior type of monastic life which transcends
such needs. If we exclude
the rare cases of authentic eremitic vocations, such an attitude
constitutes a disguised and inadmissible refusal to participate
in the communal effort for authenticity. Evidently, such attitudes
are often provoked by an abuse of communications
or an excessive introduction of dialogues, conferences, sessions,
etc., which have disturbed
the atmosphere of peace and silence required by a true monastic
life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that if such community dialogues
are superfluous they are so for all and not only for a group of
"perfects"; and in the degree to which they are required
if the community is to progress sincerely and authentically in
its efforts for renewal, no one may exempt himself without being
unfaithful to the fundamental claims of his cenobitic engagement. It is the same in the domain
of the liturgy. For centuries the liturgy was the spontaneous
expression of the spiritual experience of each ecclesial community.
Today we are tending once again towards that ideal, but after
the sad experience of several centuries of fixation. The transition
therefore cannot be made without some groping and an alternation
of successes and failures. Certainly it is more demanding to have
to endeavour repeatedly to give our prayer an adequate and authentic
form of common expression than simply to accomplish rites prepared
beforehand and given. the tide of "the official prayer of
the Church". It is precisely these demands that the "third
man" finds too heavy; and he withdraws into the background.
Some people, he argues, need this liturgical exteriorization,
but as for him, he feels called by God to a more solitary and
interior form of prayer (as though the interiority of prayer and
its communal expression were incompatible]). So he is uninterested
in the entire effort of liturgical renewal within his community.
Let the others busy themselves with this renewal; for himself,
it is enough just to pray, as he proclaims with doubtful humility.
Such an attitude is a disguised refusal of the sacramental economy
of the faith. As I said above, the path of
the "third man" is a blind alley. The renewal cannot
continue in the Church and in the Order unless another attitude
becomes predominant, that of the "fourth man". This
"fourth man" is neither a reformer nor a reactionary.
Still less is he uninterested in the ecclesial and monastic institutions,
as is the "third man". He attempts rather to renovate
these institutions from within, by giving them a new vital breath.
He knows that monastic life is above all an interior attitude
o€ presence to God--of prayer, detachment, solitude and spiritual
poverty. All his efforts, his ascesis, tend to develop in himself
and help develop in his brothers this interior attitude. He knows
that without this interior renewal all the changes of structure
are useless. But he knows also that this interior life itself
will be an illusion if he does not incarnate it adequately in
his daily life. He tries, therefore, to live in the existing structures
as sincerely as possible and to make them, as far as they are
apt, the expression of his own interior life. Thus, little by
little, he discovers, not by abstract studies but through the
positive tensions of his own vital experience, that some of these
structures should be renewed or suppressed because they have become
an obstacle to interior life instead of being its expression.
Gradually there imposes itself on him, also, the need for new
structures-not the fruit of abstract reflection or reading but
of the internal claims of existence. What I say of individuals
holds equally for communities. The "fourth man"
realizes that prayer is first and foremost a personal and interior
reality which should penetrate his entire being and mark his whole
life. But he also knows that because baptism has made him a member
of God's people, and monastic profession has made him a member
of a specific ecclesial community, he should communicate visibly
with his brothers in prayer. He knows that this communal manifestation
has to be made concrete in exterior forms whose proportion to
the interior reality will always be imperfect but which should
always be made more perfect. The needs of this common search for
authenticity will doubtless sometimes lead him to experiments
or forms of expression of prayer which he will not personally
find fulfilling, but which he will accept as an integral part
of ecclesial and community living-freely chosen by baptism and
monastic profession. To turn aside from community prayer or neglect
to join in the efforts necessary for its preparation and successful
realization, under the pretext of a personal vocation to a more
interior prayer, would seem to him like a clever means of camouflaging
spiritual sloth under the cover of greater perfection. For prayer,
to be authentic, should always be as interior and personal as
possible. The communal expression of prayer does not make it any
less interior; and interiority does not justify one in abstaining
from communion with one's brothers in expressing outwardly this
interior prayer. In the efforts to get the necessity
of a loi-cadre for the
divine office acknowledged, we utilized the very true principle
that the liturgy, in order to be genuine and alive, should emanate
from the life or spiritual experience of each community. Has this
become a reality? Yes, it seems to me, but only in very rare cases.
Most of the time, in present circumstances, it would seem that
the renewal of the liturgy is really making progress in places
where there are a few individuals who have a real comprehension
of liturgical prayer and a spirit of initiative, and who sense
the still inarticulate needs and aspirations of the community
so that they then may express them in a manner acceptable to all.
This is all very well, but it is only the first step towards the
ideal envisaged. We are only at the stage of community consent,
not at that of community creation. Here liturgical creation does
originate in a sense from the spiritual experience of the community,
but only indirectly. The reality of fraternal communion is not
yet sufficiently alive to engender directly its own expression. Actually, the entire question is probably here: how to
form real communities. For centuries the structures of our common
life consisted in the juxtaposition of individuals rather than
in the creation of a true communion. The introduction, often somewhat
excessive, of communications and dialogues certainly cleared
the atmosphere a bit, but it only developed the growth of spiritual
union at a profound level there where it already existed. Elsewhere,
it has only led to a sort of superficial camaraderie. And yet,
the first condition for carrying out a genuine renewal, one that
is both interior and communal, is to transform our monastic groups
not, certainly, into clubs of good bourgeois, but into real communities
enjoying a profound communion at the level of the fundamental
realities of monastic life: seeking God, prayer, asceticism. Which
probably comes to saying that we are still at an early stage of
renewal. Mistassini Translated by Sr. Claude Busch, Rogersville. Cistercian Studies vol. 6 (1971) 255-260. |
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