JUBILARIANS ALL! - Holy Name Province

EDITORIAL MUSINGS
No guide book mentions Cliftonville, a quite unpretentious town in Kent, England.
It’s a sort of tired retirement village with a number of less than modest hotels
and boarding houses. Fortunately it does have a train station, encouraging
me to visit St. Anselm’s Institute to visit a Bangladesh priest who was spending
his sabbatical there.
The Institute is actually a renovated small hotel which offers an unique program, going on 20
years now, for bishops, priests and religious. Call it a renewal time or whatever—but apparently
it is quietly known world-wide.
What brings the place to mind is an article written by its director, Fr. Len Kofler, priest and
psychotherapist (The Tablet, 3 July 2009), who candidly admits that “I have spent many years
dealing with my own emotions and helping others to be constructive with theirs.”
He is convinced that not only in the formation years but throughout our lives, “…the emphasis
needs to shift from a mainly intellectual to a more experiential approach,” adding that “we
need a psycho-spiritual integration.”
While heads may nod in approval, he adds a most important zinger: “Spirituality without psychology
is not anchored. Psychology without spirituality is directionless.”
Proof Does anyone remember the tragic fad of “encounter groups” in the 60s and 70s The
damage done to individual friars was absolutely horrific. The great and appalling weakness
was to encourage participants to “let it all hang out,” only to find to their shocked dismay that
there was no one to put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Let’s be real: everyone is “wounded.” Usually the target is the “dysfunctional” (aka crazy)
family history. Let’s be more real: oftentimes the person never realizes the here-and-now but
subconscious effects of past, negative experiences.
Sr. Joan Chittister offers a concrete example:
“People in positions of authority know they aren’t being heard if the people they are trying
to direct turn every conversation into an adolescent struggle with the ghosts of their parents.”
Maybe there was some truth in the story told about Archbishop John J. Cantwell of Los Ange-
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WestFriars
Editor: Warren J. Rouse, OFM . Layout, Design & Circulation: Ali Packard
Archives: Timothy Arthur, OFM
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