TESTIMONIES ABOUT DEVOTIONS

What happened to devotions? They just disappeared. Let me tell two stories to illustrate it. Firstly, I did a project some time back on active catholic families, more or less those who go to church on sundays. When it came to family prayer and devotions there were simply no examples of this in the families I studied. When I published the related papers, my reviewers found this hard to believe.

Some of the participants in my study were forlorn about this, as in the comment "I wished we prayed together". Secondly, I was at a conference last weekend and in a discussion on family catechesis a presenter noted emphatically that no English Catholic family today sits around together and prays the rosary. This was not challenged. Her point was that this was a practice only found in immigrant Catholic communities. As for why this happened a lot could be said. I think one consideration was a naive attitude about how precarious these practices were. This harks back to some of the comments on the previous post on Vatican II. As a boy in Catholic school I can remember being told that rote prayers, devotions and all that stuff were undignified and that a far better way to pray was to do it alone and spontaneously. The thinking then was that once people purged devotional prayer and similar activities they would replace them with other more worthy practices. Not so. Total prayer time went into rapid decline and the markers of Catholic family life approximated those of others in the wider culture with similar demographic profile.
Richard Rymarz   <rymarz@ualberta.ca>
St Joseph's College, University of Alberta       
Edmonton, AB

2. Historical review.
Letting go of formative practices such as devotions was disastrous Joe Martos

After the Council of Trent, a conjunction of historical developments gave rise to devotions such as the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sacred Heart of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, and a variety of saints. One factor was the desire of the hierarchy to emphasize the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism by promoting practices based on beliefs that the Reformers had rejected—the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the role of Mary, the communion of saints, etc. Another was the development of printing, which made possible the inexpensive production of devotional books, pamphlets and holy cards. A third was the rigidity of the post-Tridentine liturgy, which prevented the natural evolution of the mass and the sacraments such as had gone on for centuries before the Counter-Reformation.

Devotional practices made it possible for Catholics to experience the sacred in ways that were culturally relevant and personally rewarding. People could experience a transcendent presence by the repetition of prayers, by kneeling, by walking in procession, and by gazing at images of Christ, the Virgin, and countless saints. Such experiences reinforced faith by providing proof that could be felt and not simply believed. When performed together, as in processions and novenas, they provided social support for the faith of individuals.

In the early to mid-twentieth century, children learned how to be Catholic through the practice of devotions. Praying the rosary at home and abstaining from meat on Friday showed them what Catholics did and how they differed from people of other religions. Even when they went to mass, Catholics often prayed devotional prayers, pausing only when they heard the bells rung for the consecration and elevation of the Blessed Sacrament. In parochial schools, devotions and the catechism provided the structure and the content of the faith.

Many of those whose faith was formed before the Second Vatican Council were able to transform the experience of faith from one focused on devotions to one focused more on scripture and the liturgy. When free of superstition (like making the nine First Fridays in order to avoid dying in mortal sin), devotions enabled ordinary people to experience the reality of God and carry it with them from the pre-conciliar church to the post-conciliar church. I believe this is one of the reasons why people who consider themselves to be Vatican II Catholics were so strongly in favor of the council’s changes. Being able to find God in the new mass and the revised sacraments, they were convinced of the validity and value of the liturgical changes.

Letting go of formative practices such as devotions was disastrous, however, for the next generation of Catholics. Except for programs such as the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which is based on Montessori principles, most religious education was centered on words and stories—and this at a time, when television, movies and popular music provided alternative and much more vibrant images to capture the imaginations of children and young people. If new devotional practices such as charismatic prayer and healing had not been discouraged, if new articulations of faith such as liberation theology had not been suppressed, and if popular religiosity had been allowed to expand in truly multicultural ways, Catholicism might not be contracting in many parts of the world as it is today.
Joseph Martos     <joseph.martos@gmail.com>
Louisville, KY

3. I am curious about the sense of loss I am hearing
Marti Jewell

I am intrigued by the comments on this topic, grateful to Joe Martos for the history, and curious about the sense of loss I am hearing.

I am always interested in putting things into context. For example, in the middle ages, the laity had no active participation in the liturgy beyond being present and so devotions filled in a spiritual need. Today we are involved in liturgy - at least for those Catholics that go to church.

My curiosity extends to the need to ask this question in a cultural context. I know that in Germany and Mexico, for instance, pilgrimages are a very significant part of one's devotional life, though not so in the US. However in the US, on order to answer this question, one would also need to look at devotional practices in the various cultures - Latino/a, Asian - PI, African - that mark the growing diversity of US Catholicism. For example, an incredibly significant devotional practice, especially for Latino/as, is getting ashes at Ash Wednesday. In the large parishes here in Texas the lines go on all day long!
I would be interested in hearing other examples of culturally significant devotions.
Marti R. Jewell   <mjewell@udallas.edu>
School of Ministry
University of Dallas

4. Family devotions in Protestant families
Robert Priest

Family devotions have also been a past tradition in Protestant families. We had family devotions twice a day in the family I grew up in, although in the family I parented, somewhat less consistently. I wonder if any national random survey has have ever asked questions on this topic? Any data to show trends?
Robert Priest    <rpriest@tiu.edu>
Professor of Mission and Anthropology
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
 Deerfield, IL

5. The anchor of simple, unadorned stillness and meditative silence
Neville Ann Kelly

The inquiry of “what has happened to traditional devotions” is, perhaps unexpectedly, of fundamental interest to theological education. While this assertion needs much development to begin adequate address, I will simply suggest reinvigoration of a venerable practice that anchors learning in an unsurpassed—and often unexpected—depth of intellectual, spiritual, and embodied engagement, no matter what doctrinal beliefs a student holds. Since that assertion would require manifold reams of multidisciplinary evidence (!), I will simply offer anecdotal evidence to support my bold claim.

In the context of the varied pastoral and academic worlds I have inhabited the past two decades, I have often witnessed Christian young adults wistfully longing for something to “do” to anchor their faith experience while simultaneously disclosing they often find traditional devotions, services and liturgies available to them lackluster and unappealing. Teaching in both Roman Catholic parish settings and the Benedictine academic classroom, I have consistently found young adults quietly but deeply finding a refreshing spiritual anchor in moments of simple, unadorned stillness and meditative silence. As students repeatedly related these moments as profoundly grounding and meaningful, I realized the extraordinary potency of contemplative stillness—often overlooked as a practice— as a fundamental Christian action. As the tradition well attests, this stillness is anything but still; it is often the catalyst of extraordinary growth, movement and transformation.

Furthermore, the potency of meditative practice seems to be true regardless of the religious tradition wherein it is “packaged.” Again appealing to anecdote: I taught a survey of world religions last semester that demonstrated this most fundamental, yet often forgotten (or not realized), practice of such inestimable value. Throughout the course, I provided students an interreligious “practice tasting” opportunity each week, inviting each of the students to enter the experience as though they had chosen the devotion as a means of their personal growth. I was quite surprised at the level of earnest engagement this group of non-religious studies/theology majors made as we took the five or ten minutes for the brief practice. The practices often generated a multitude of questions that remained foremost in students’ minds as we studied challenging didactic themes. Their momentary, experiential exposure to a choice practice of what some people “did” as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and other traditions sparked a noticeable flame of interest and engagement; something the Christian tradition recognizes so readily as grace.

Among many active practices, meditation clearly won first prize in the class. Students frequently related the value of interreligious experience as a means of more fully enacting their own Christian backgrounds (I have students’ permission to share these representative quotes): “I have learned the importance of meditation. Being able to sit in silence clears my mind so I can pray to God without distraction, plus I feel more relaxed”; “enjoyment in the class was the Buddhist meditation. It might not be a really big theme of the section, but I enjoyed it. I really liked how we were allowed to sit in silence and just relax, but didn’t at the same time”; “I have learned the importance of meditation. Being able to sit in silence clears my mind so I can pray to God without distraction, plus I feel more relaxed. I can see why the Buddhist monks use it. It definitely made me feel calmer about daily life and I have used it already on more than occasion to settle my temper.” Many students compared the meditative practices we “tried on” to Eucharistic Adoration, interestingly voicing desire to find ways to practice their own traditions more fully. Similarly, students’ exposure to dimensions of varied interreligious ritual stimulated interest in Christian liturgical actions more familiar to them, as well as in deeper pursuit of the vibrant contemplative tradition within Christianity.

I found it of deep interest that experientially touching these interreligious meditative practices helped many students recognize the value of familiar Christian devotions. What that suggests is multiple and intriguing, inviting much inquiry and consideration. In many ways, such active practices provided students the most profound pedagogy of the course, anchoring them in their interior life as they simultaneously grappled with the course’s demanding intellectual work as well.

While the brief semester weeks of this survey course merely allowed for a quick and insufficient toe dip into the depths of spiritual practice, they gave students something quite beyond an academic observation or analysis of the theological tradition. The “doing” seemed itself to be generative of an experience with transforming grace in students’ lives. No matter the rubrics and style of the devotion itself, something happens to us when we practice them.
Neville Ann Kelly    <nevkel@gmail.com>
Mount Marty College

6. Many powerful faith experiences in my parish and small groups
Mary Whiteside

I have the blessing of working with the older generation of Catholics through my work in Adult Faith and with the teens and young children of the parish in my role as a Catechist and retreat leader. Both sets of faithful people experience their spirituality through devotions, but we need to offer a little creativity for the younger generation. They are used to immediate answers and they have a need to feel connected to what they are being taught in a real world sense. Sometimes, through our Youth Rally or our trips to NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) we are able to help them move toward some of our more traditional devotions, but they seem to respond more to our more creative and progressive approaches. Our parish has devotions and rituals that meet the needs of all generations. For our people who appreciate more traditional devotions, we have an Adoration Chapel that is always open. People come and go all day and all night and frequently we have visitors from other parishes who come to our Adoration Chapel to spend time with Jesus. We also have a weekly Rosary Prayer Group that meets in our Day Chapel. The men and women in these groups are generally older and come from a traditional church background. We provide Advent and Lent devotional booklets that are devoured by the people of our parish every time! Here are some of the other things we do as ritual or devotion to bring a more powerful faith experience to people:

• During Lent our Knights of Columbus offer a fish fry every Friday. The fish fry is followed by Stations of the Cross. Each week we will have a traditional experience of Stations of the Cross at about 5:30 and then a more contemporary experience later on. One week our junior high teens will present the Stations complete with drama and narration that includes powerful questions for teens about how they are living. The teen presentation is directed by older teens who are from our Peer Ministry program. Another week our Stations are presented by our Social Justice and Outreach Community which puts a social justice spin on the message and asks people to reflect on how we are tending to those who are marginalized, those who are hurting, those who are poor, another week our Knights of Columbus host the Stations and focus on the precious gift of life....One year we had a very unique version of the Stations, all told from the point of view of Mary. Beautiful. Each week is different and very powerful.

• On Good Friday, our teens perform the Passion of Christ. It is directed by a local high school teacher who is in charge of the musicals at her school and our Music Director. Every year it brings more people. It is beautifully done, with music and incredibly talented teens who meet every Sunday for months to prepare for this. Young and old alike come and there is rarely a dry eye in the church. It is dramatic and powerful. In the evening, for the Veneration of the Cross, our teens from the Passion Play hold the huge cross up on the altar as everyone comes forward.

• Our Christian Family Movement group has a faith cluster for children in grades 1-10. One of the very powerful rituals we have adopted in the group is the presentation of the Bibles. When the children are in third grade, after they have received the Eucharist for the first time the year before, we have a ceremony where each child brings in their Bible that they read as a little child and places it on the Altar. We then present them with a "big kid" Bible. They come up one at a time when their name is called and they are asked a question about if they are ready to receive the Word of God. When they say YES! they are given the new Bible. This may seem like a simple ritual, but when you make it clear that what they are receiving is something very special, they will treat it like it is very special. When you just say, "Parents, go buy your child a Bible so we can study it" you don't have the same experience. Every time I have seen this ritual I have seen the same thing...the children sit down with their new Bible and they gently page through it, treating it with incredible respect and genuinely wanting to know what it says. I have a picture of my son with his good friend, sitting in a tree at my house reading their Bibles together just a few days after receiving theirs.

• Our CFM group also provides a "Garden of Gethsemane" experience where the children do some walking and they are led to a special place to pray quietly by candlelight as they are told the story of Jesus' last days. It is very prayerful and you can hear a pin drop. At the end, they are given a post-it-note where they can write anything they want to place at the cross, to let go of and to trust God with, and when they are ready, they go and stick their post-it-note on the cross. By the end, the cross is covered and their hearts have been opened. In the last year or two we began having our older teens from the group lead this experience for the younger children. Involvement is helpful in keeping them connected!

  Many of our parishioners don't want to just blindly follow devotions without a full understanding of why we have them, so our Bible Study Ministries are incredibly popular and we offer constant programming for adults to learn from Scripture Scholars. Our speakers are amazing and touch on more traditional ways of looking at our faith as well as more progressive models of expressing our faith.

Those are just a few of the thoughts I have on this. I do have some concerns that if we focus too much on traditional forms of devotions we might lose the younger generation. I feel strongly that while we can introduce them to our traditional devotions, in my experience they respond better to experiences that speak to the world they are living in. They live in a very different world than our grandparents did. We need to recognize that and meet them where they are to have an impact on their lives.
Mary Whiteside  <mary.whiteside@att.net>
Holy Family parish

7. I find inspiration in both traditional devotions and social justice
Matthew Sherman

I am pleased to be able to join the conversation. I hope that, in a conversation that has touched on cultural issues, I can offer a first-person perspective on one facet of Catholic culture. This reflection went a bit longer than I had planned, so please bear with me.

I am what sociology has called a “millennial” Catholic. I am neither Generation X nor Generation Y. I, and my peers, have never had a deep suspicion of the traditions of the Church while still having a healthy suspicion of the potential for abuse within authority structures. As I came into my own adulthood in college, I was part of a small but loyal group of Catholic students who worshiped and served together. I thought nothing of saying the rosary weekly in tandem with spontaneous group prayer. I thought nothing of singing both Pange Lingua and Be Not Afraid in the same week. I thought nothing of going to adoration one night, and then going to bring food to a homeless shelter shortly afterward, in the company of the same peers who had also been at adoration. This was, and is, the Church I believe in. I do not believe that it is anything other than a Church of sinners, but it is also the site of God’s truth, which can be seen in its inherited devotions as well as the innovative insights of its contemporary members. For me, it is a “both-and” Catholicism. And this is why I am heartily convinced that devotions—the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, procession, and benediction, liturgy of the hours, stations of the cross, novenas—are the indispensable stuff of my faith. I could not imagine being Catholic without them. For me, Eucharistic devotion is the heart of my spirituality; it conforms me to the kind of person I want to be, at God’s disposal. It also provides real sustenance for life, and real answers to prayer. Yet I agree with the twentieth-century trajectory that says that, if I worship a Eucharistic God, that same God is food for the hungry, and I am God’s agent in the world. God strengthens me for service, to be food for others. Thus, I believe that one of the “new devotions” of our time is realizing that the work of justice can be prayer and sacrament, a manifestation of Christ in the world and for the world.

For me, I think that new and needed devotions are those that unite the traditions of the Church with a renewed sense of its social mission. Eucharistic adoration, for example, is an essential statement of the presence and power of Christ in the world as nourishment for God’s people. Christian hospice programs, too, are essential statements of the nourishing and healing work of Christ in the world. As such, adoration and hospice programs are united in theological meaning. Eucharist gives sacramental weight to the work of justice, and the work of justice gives efficacious meaning to the power of the sacrament. Without the sacraments, social service is merely a statement of civic duty, not God’s tangible power on earth. Without service, the sacraments run the risk of being irrelevant for social life. Sacrament and service are not two options, but rather, two essential sides of the same coin.
If there are new devotions, I suspect that they are simply modern-day applications of old devotions, and I am grateful to all those who have helped me to see that I have inherited a tradition that is steeped in both devotions and the work of justice and community-building. My family just experienced this kind of “devotionalism” only weeks ago. This past Christmas, my father was fighting one of the many respiratory illnesses that have been going around. He did not join us at Mass on Christmas Eve, for the first time in memory. Kindly and providentially, a long-time family friend offered to bring my dad communion on Christmas morning. Somewhat unexpectedly, though, our friend brought enough of the Eucharist to share with all of us who were present. So I began my Christmas in my family’s house-church, with a dear friend and minister leading us in a communion service. His sincere prayers for my father, his proclamation of the Word, and the communion of all present brought us to the brink of tears. Here, at the juncture of the domestic church, sacrament, and the works of mercy, we all found Christ Incarnate on Christmas morning, entering our homes, entering our bodies, and uniting us in that space. This is the Church, and the Christ, that I grew to love in college; I would choose to know no other.
Matthew Sherman    <msherman@marymount.edu>
Arlington, VA

8. Two traditional parishes alive and well
Gaile Pohlhaus

When asked me to write about devotions and traditions I immediately thought of my parish church and how I was introduced to it. We had recently moved from a parish where we were members for over 40 years and I was looking for a parish community that was hospitable and community minded as our former parish. Actually our former parish in addition to many community outreach programs still participated in 40 hours, weekly adoration, May Crowning, and other traditional devotions.

Assuming that every Catholic Church had an 8 a.m. daily mass I drove to a nearby Church and was surprised by the fact that their daily mass was at 7:30 a.m. However, their mass was followed by the recitation of the Rosary each morning. This parish had daily adoration, parish picnics, Stations of the Cross during Lent, and other traditional devotions. In addition they too had many outreach social service programs, faith sharing groups, and ongoing adult education. Both parishes have new traditions and devotions: RCIA, pre-Cana and marriage encounter programs, female altar servers, lay lectors, and lay extra-ordinary ministers of communion. I do not see many scapulars but I do see many red roses. It seems to me that while some things may fade out new things replace them
Gaile M. Pohlhaus   <gaile.pohlhaus@villanova.edu>
Villanova University

9. The liturgy of the hours has been a constant for me
Christine Fletcher

I was not going to contribute, because I am a convert post Vatican II, but thinking it over, and reading the other contributions I will add my thoughts.

In the years when I was raising children and teaching CCD, I was looking for devotions to enrich the teaching for my students and my children. I had a May procession for my class, with the pastor's reluctant participation.

When we moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia, we participated in the 40 Hours, and the May procession. My sons liked the stations of the cross, if they could choose the family prayer, that was usually it. We never really managed to use the rosary. We would read the Bible around the table in Advent and Lent.

Our parish didn't have the rosary, but the adjoining parish where the parochial school was located prayed morning prayer after the morning Mass.

As an ex- Protestant, it is the liturgy of the hours that has been the constant in my spiritual life. Now my husband and I are Benedictine oblates, and I am at home with this spirituality of biblical prayer and lectio divina.
Chris Fletcher    <Cfletcher@ben.edu> 
Benedictine Uniersity

10. Traditional devotions and Eucharistic piety
Daniel Olsen

My reflections on devotional practices begin with my time in college seminary training about 15 years ago. I remember little of devotional practices growing up, outside of an occasional rosary and way of the cross during Lent at my Catholic grade school. However, during my time in the college level seminary devotional practice became heightened. Looking back, what surprises me most about this renewal devotional practice was that it became more or less synonymous with Eucharistic adoration. We had other devotional practices to be sure, but it was driven home that the core of my devotional life should center on the Eucharist. I even remember traveling to another seminary for a visit and was struck that seminarians there were strongly encouraged to spend an hour in Eucharistic adoration daily. More recently, I have noticed several parishes in the area in which I live (Chicago) have begun to put more emphasis on Eucharistic adoration as key devotional practice. It is not the only devotional means to be sure, but it is definitely viewed as the most important.

There surely are several worthwhile elements to this practice and my connection to Eucharistic piety remains strong today. Yet, the overt focus on Eucharistic adoration as the primary mode of devotional practice among Catholics does suggest an even more Eucharistic-centered Catholic community than the one I remember from my youth. What are the implications of this focus beyond the obvious positive elements? How does this focus on Eucharist, for example, impact inter-church or mixed marriage families who hope to nourish their prayer life in common through family devotions? Must they adore what they are barred from sharing in light of Christian division? From another perspective, has this Eucharistic focus inadvertently lessened the import of other ancient devotional practices? I'm not sure on either score, but it does raise issues that need some sorting.

My second thought on the matter is the increasing incidence of Latino/a Catholics in the American Christian (particularly Catholic) context. The heightened use of experiential and devotional practices within this ethnic community may serve to reinvigorate some lapsed sense of devotions among American Anglo-Catholics. Personally witnessing the importance of devotional and liturgical expressions of piety connected with such events as the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dia de los muertos and Good Friday suggests to me a lively outward expression of faith. As Latino/a Catholics become more prominent in the future of American Catholicism, it would seem likely to see some renewed appreciation of devotional practices as a part of the lifeblood of many parishes and university ministry programs.
Daniel Olsen  <olsenda@lewisu.edu>
Chicago, IL

11. Reply to Daniel Olsen
Richard Shields

Devotions make sense within their historical and cultural context.

Daniel Olsen makes convincing connection between devotional practices and ethnicity/identity. As many in the Catholic church struggle to find practices that restore a sense of identity and commitment that marked an earlier time period, the temptation is to return to the practices that characterized that period. It was a time marked by counter-reformational and (in North America) counter-minority ("Irish need not apply") pastoral approaches that sought to help Catholics stay clear of heresy and not give in to the protestant ascendency's depiction of Catholics as less than. Books like Robert Orsi's Thank you St. Jude and the Madonna of 115th street suggest that devotions helped immigrant Catholic work through their marginal situation, as well. Both the devotions and their function make sense within their historical and cultural context. But in an ecumenical (although somewhat dormant) kairos, devotions that build on "Catholic identity" seem more a retreat from the Gospel than an embrace of the Kingdom.

Today I see many parishes and Catholic schools trying to renew or maintain identity and commitment by a return to their devotions (family rosary, may crowning, even Latin mass [which is not strictly speaking a devotion]). How long will the old wine skins retain the new wine? Or are the Catholics who find affirmation and strength in these returns to the past a form of "old wine"?

Many of the traditional devotions reflect a cosmology in which God's providential care of the universe fit the metaphor of a kind and powerful ruler or a committed parent. They have a timelessness character that can be found also in some of the TV evangelist reassurance that all is in God's hands and success, prosperity, and safety will come when one consistently maintains a regimen of bible-reading, praise, and fellowship. These kinds of devotions are often the "life line" for many, who see themselves and their faith cracking under the pressures of an increasingly complex society difficult to make sense out of. But they focus on an interior equilibrium and distract from what Catholic gatherings like Vatican II identified as recognizing, identifying with, and engaging in God's action in the world. The epistemological assumptions that ground the quest of finding God as a source of personal safety and recognizing the revelation of God in the signs of the times differ; but they are not mutually exclusive.

Francis of Assisi, for example, was troubled by the "host-worship" on the one hand and the denial of the value of "material" sacraments on the other. His words on the Eucharist reveal a sense of the unity of the sacramentality of life and the life of the sacramental actions of the Church (one might visit the writings of Chauvet for a modern interpretation). Francis probed deeply the fact of the incarnation and never fell into an abstract timeless sense of "God" in general.

A naive return to a devotional church smacks of a self serving form of piety, which might fit into what Christian Smith (Notre Dame) dubbed "moralistic therapeutic deism."

So what is our role, our responsibility as theologians? We can't simply choose to be pro or anti devotions. Devotions are practices that hold one steady to a faith commitment that transcends and makes sense out of the confusion and ambiguity of life and leads the believer to choices that involve her or him more deeply in the life of discipleship. Theology would do well to focus on the meaning of discipleship in a manner that can be understood in not-exclusively-religious language. The essential need for community in this process and action (communicative action?) that embodies somewhat the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus will raise questions of how to maintain the commitment of faith in life--life that is increasingly "global" (post-ethnic and post-denominational). A reestablishment of devotional practices is likely to be another passing fad, serving a particular understanding of religion, allowing the (Catholic) church to maintain its tradtional hierarchical/institutional limitations that still make religion a matter for the professionals (ritual/doctrinal specialists) and the laity as consumers of salvific objects.

Historically devotions follow shifts in consciousness and re-discovery of the newness and originality of God in Christ and not the other way around. I believe (in a non normative, but I humbly submit correct manner) that [traditional] devotions do not lead to renewal.
Richard Shields  <richshields@sympatico.ca>
University of St. Michael's College

12. Focus on spirituality
Clare McGrath-Merkl

The focus of my theological studies was spirituality. There is body of literature on current issues surrounding spiritual practices and related topics such as ecclesiology from the perspective of scholars of spirituality. I found it interesting that Protestant students in my class on current spiritual practices were searching for practices that they found missing in their traditions. They were interested particularly in monastic traditions.
The Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College has been a resource in this area. They currently have a video presentation of a discussion on practices old and new at:
http://www.bc.edu/church21/
From my narrow perspective as a student of spirituality, I think we could use more collaborative work with sociologists of religion in setting research agendas that are less polarized and more nuanced. When I interviewed at one university to pursue my interest in the intersection of spirituality and sociology, the professor with whom I spoke said he wanted to abolish the word "spirituality."
I think we are in a time very similar to the late 16th and early 17th century when there was an explosion of popular publications on a wide variety of spiritual ideals, which were then mixed and matched, trying to recreate the perceived stability of pre-Reformation times. The results were also mixed: a mystic vogue; counter-valencing Jansenist and priestly spiritualities characterized by a missionary and intemperate zeal to control the chaos (ecclesial and cultural); and overall, a sometimes narcissistic turn toward the self (due to both eastern (Christian and otherwise) and classical influences). Plus ça change...?
Clare McGrath-Merkl    <cmm4@verizon.net>
Universität Augsburg

13. An academic point
Dan Sheridan

Most studies of the history of the Church ignore the question of the practice of the faith by those not literate for the first fifteen centuries and then not print-literate for the past five. I think it would be safe to say that the majority of the people of Ireland, with its immense impact on the Church in North America, were illiterate and print-illiterate until the middle of the nineteenth century. My grandfather emigrated in 1902. He had gone to school in County Clare, was taught by Sisters to read English, and to distance himself from the spoken Gaelic of which his children were to have no knowledge. His grandfather would not have gone to school, he would not have known English, and there would have been no sisters to teach him before 1840. He probably had no parish church yet either. Something called the "devotional revolution" occurred in Ireland in mid-nineteenth century, just as parish churches and schools were being built everywhere, the weekly practice of the mass, and new religious communities, and the development of many "devotions": e.g., Our Lady of Knock and then a very slow diminishment of the impact of holy wells. Often our discussions are about the near past, the very near past.
Dan Sheridan   <dsherida@sjcme.edu>
Saint Joseph's College