Dominican Self-Appraisal in the Light of the Council by Valentine Walgrave, O. P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 379 Dominican Self-Appraisal in the Light of the Council. By VALENTINE WALGRAVE, 0. P. Chicago: The Priory Press, 1968. Pp. 369 with appendixes. $10.00. Primarily this is a familial book. The Dominican Order, like all religious families in the Church, is engaged in the work of adaptive renewal. The Order must acknowledge a debt of gratitude to one of its friars, Valentine Walgrave, for having brought to the task of self-evaluation a clarity of vision and the basic erudition requisite to situate the problems which must be resolved if the Order is to continue as a vital force in the life of the Church. Since it is a familial book, there are many details and applications which, apart from the members of the Order, would be of interest only to those who are irreformably curious. However, the core concept developed by the author is of value not only for all religious who are called to " combine contemplation with apostolic love" (Vat. Cone. II, Perf. Car., n. 5) but inferentially to all who seriously seek to orient themselves in relation to the whole of reality. To acquire an appreciative understanding of reality, the seeker must assume a posture of openness or receptivity much as the craftsman must be sensitive and responsive to the lineaments of his material if he would produce a masterwork. It is the author's thesis that the climate of contemporary Western civilization is inimical to the easy assimilation of the contemplative attitude which he understands as " a psychological predisposition which inclines us to be receptive to the grace of contemplation. . . ." (p. 105) Two factors operate as obstacles to the acquisition of this spirit. The first is a closed humanism, not yet incorporated into an authentic Christian form, characterized by a " socialization " devoted to involvement for the sake of personal fulfillment which further generates an " horizontalism " that excludes the transcendant. This work of humanization, being committed to temporal values, repudiates the ascetical attitude as an obstacle to spontaneity and accepts only that asceticism connected with service-oriented activity. Further, despite a clear linguistic commitment to eschatology, the movement of humanism for the most part empties the concept of all transterrestrial values. The second obstacle to the acquisition of the contemplative attitude, one which is prior to and related to the first, is the predominance of the active consciousness, that is, a primary concern with actualization. Modern man is above all else an "achiever," a "realizer" who is attracted not by the transcendental but is challenged to re-create himself and the world in which he lives. Such activism necessarily excludes or makes very difficult the attitude of listening which is the beginning of the dialogue with the transcendant. In a word, the requisite openness to divine reality is viewed 380 BOOK REVIEWS as a passive sterility which makes no efficient contribution to the accomplishment of actualization. Father Walgrave concludes: "To recover a receptive form of consciousness which is willing to live in silence and awareness of God, we must develop a concept of man that is in complete opposition to a closed form of humanism." (p. 1~7) He believes that a providential trend is at work in the world which may serve to liberate man and bring him to accept himself as one of" the poor of Yaweh." A recovery of the dialogie sense of contemplation has been manifested in the lives of such influential figures as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dag HammerskjOld and Pope John XXIII. It is the author's unassailable premise that the Dominican concept-the ideal incarnated in Saint Dominic-contains a contemplative dimension that has a value in itself and an ultimate relationship to the apostolic and doctrinal mission. Authenticity demands a practical reaffirmation of this by the Order. The ultimate criterion which must be applied to evaluate experiments engaged in concerning the housekeeping details of the Dominican life-form is neither the norm of efficiency nor that of self-realization but whether or not the process is contributory to the development of the contemplative attitude. If this is assured, all else will follow. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. 0. WILLIAM B. RYAN, 0. P. Miscellanea Andre Combes...