1. Leone Dehon, Notes Quotidiennes, Volume V, Notebook XXXIV - XLV (1911-1925), pp. 662, Edizioni Dehoniane Roma 1998
The publication of this volume has been received with great satisfaction, completing, as it does, the series of "Notes Quotidiennes", a work which, together with the Letters, is certainly the most important and the most "personal" of the writings of our venerable Founder.
The volume covers the longest period of Fr. Dehon's life, which was the period of the greatest suffering (during the long war of 1914-1918), and also the richest and most stimulating; since the years from 1918 to 1925 were a time of revision and interiorization of all the events and all the values which characterized and animated his whole activity and his long life.
All of this is made evident, a little at a time, by the numerous "note storiche" (historical notes) which accompany the pages of this important publication. The long introduction brings out the most typical aspects of this "Diary": the period of the Great War. It was during the beginning of these years, which he lived in almost total isolation, that he mostly read authors of predominately apocalyptic writings, people who interpreted the catastrophe of the war as "God's punishment" for the sins of society.
But as time past Fr. Dehon progressively found himself drawn mostly to spiritual authors who described, with tact and deep participation, what it was like to live a life with God, mystical theology, and how the Holy Spirit inhabited the soul of the just. These were books which Fr. Dehon read and reread with passion, for he had adored this divine Presence for a long time. It was from the reading of these authors that he saw the confirmation of his conviction: he himself would be able to receive the divine Mystery into his own heart as a guest, indeed as a friend. He felt as if he were ecstatic by these readings, and found that he could quote page after page of certain authors, (like Barthélemy Froget, Eusèbe Amort and, above all, Charles Sauvé). But when mentioning the spiritual authors who most impressed Fr. Dehon we cannot forget two holy Carmalite nuns, younger than him: Elizabeth of the Trinity and Theresa of the Child Jesus. When he read their autobiographies he was like one under a spell, perceiving in their spiritual message the most authentic and mature expression of his own "spirit", as it is expressed in our Constitutions with the formula "life of love and of immolation" (XLV 53-55).
The last "notebook" of this "Diary" is mostly about Fr. Dehon "revisiting" his spiritual path. They are pages in which he tried to specify, ever more clearly and ever better, his way of conceiving and living his consecration, which he understood as a life of union with and oblation for the Heart of Jesus, with the intention of reaching a true communion of love with the Holy Trinity. "Initially", he wrote, "I wanted to plumb the depths of the Mystery. Now, instead, this devotion appears so simple to me; it speaks to my heart; it is the divine Persons that we must consider distinctly: the Father, my Creator and loving Father; the Word; the Son of God incarnate, who is my older brother; the Holy Spirit, whom I wish to consult and follow always with limitless trust...".
One of the merits of the long introduction is also that it emphasizes how many times the theme of social commitment returns in the notebooks of these last years; years in which Fr. Dehon so often recalled, with sincere admiration, the Pope of "Rerum Novarum", Leo XIII, and his friend and collaborator Leon Harmel. It is precisely these names, so dear to him, that he wrote on the last page of his last notebook between the end of July and the beginning of August 1925.
Ample prominence is also given to what Fr. Dehon defined "the divine foundations of the Work". This is a theme which frequently reappeared in his "Notes pour l'Histoire de ma vie" as well as in various "Circular Letters". In these last notebooks of the "Diary" these same themes are reformulated as "recollections", in conformation of his initial intuitions, even if he recognizes the fact that if he had first read the two volumes by E. Amort, entitled "De revelationibus", he would have been more prudent in evaluating the "interior enlightenment" of the Sister Handmaids of Saint Quentin (XXXVI, 121).
These are only brief and extremely incomplete indications of a work which we can consider "fundamental" for those who wish to study and know more closely the figure, the thought and the work of our Venerable Founder. We can only hope that this will not fail to be contained in any of our libraries and that many brethren will start a systematic study of it, not only for their own benefit but also to propagate the contents in a manner which is both analytic and scientifically documented.
(Andrea Tessarolo)
2. Bernard Bothe, Pater Heinrich Middendorf, S.C.J., "Gerechter unter den Völkern", (Waisen, Juden, Menschen in Bedrängnis - Lebensschicksale in Stegen von 1942 bis 1945), Stegen 1998.
"Forgetfulness leads to exile, in recollection lies the secret of redemption".
With this quotation from rabbinic literature Fr. Bernard Bothe, S.C.J. starts the volume dedicated to Fr. Heinrich Middendorf, published in the year of the centenary of his birth (1898-1998). This straightforward and well documented work presents the value and the generative capacity of memory and recollection: basic elements in the Jewish tradition and faith which are applied to life, and above all to the religious life, which, in the time of the Nazi terror and barbarism, was able to ally itself radically with the cause of life and of the dignity of the human being.
For this reason, in the year 1994, the organism of the State of Israel dedicated to honoring those who during the period of Nazism helped and protected Jews (Yad Vashem), agreed, in response to a petition of the survivors of that epoch, to give Fr. Middendorf recognition for the work which he performed during those years of nazism, when he risked his own life in favor of individuals and families of Jewish Origin.
The scene of the events was Stegen, a little village in the southwest of Germany, 9 kms from the city of Freiburg, at the foot of the Black Forest, where since the early thirties the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have been carrying out teaching and parochial activities
In the dramatic period from 1942 to 1945, Fr. Middendorf was the rector of the community. At the same time different groups of persons lived there: the Sacred Heart Community made up of twenty religious; three Dominican nuns who looked after the tasks of cooking and washing; a community of eight Vicentinas (Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul) who looked after the 75 children in the orphanage, and a large and variable number of families or single persons who had no where to go ("Catholics, Protestants, those who opposed nazism, nazi sympathizers, French collaborators, Italian antifascists... Some with fear of the present, others afraid of the future. And all of them afraid of everyone", as was described by one of the witnesses of the period, Mrs. Lotte Paepcke, in her recollection of the situation at the end of 1944, cf. p. 19 ff). They all found refuge and hope among our people. A total number of 152 people came to us, among whom nine were of Jewish origin.
It is from this group of Jewish survivors that there arose the initiative, in 1993, to request the public and perennial gratitude of the State of Israel to those who had saved their lives. The bureaucratic departments quickly took action when faced with the evidence of the facts. Today a plaque in the Garden of the Just in Jerusalem recalls, for eternity, Fr. Middendorf as "A just man among the nations". The work of Fr. Bothe includes the documents, acts and discourses prepared for the official celebrations which were carried out both in Israel and in Germany. His birthplace (Aschendorf) also wanted to join in the homage and gave the name of "Heinrich Middendorf" to the village school.
Without doubt, the part dedicated to the testimonies of those who knew him and benefited from his action reveals the courage and generosity of this religious, manifested daily both with those who came to Stegan in search of protection and with those whom Fr. Middendorf himself went in search of in order to give them cover in his community.
Shortly after the war Fr. Middendorf was elected General Counsellor of the Congregation (1949-1954). At the end of this assignment he went to Rome and was Secretary General of the Reparatory Associations until the year 1956 when he set off as a missionary, at the age of fifty-eight, to what was then called Belgian Congo, where, in the year 1964, the turbulent revolt of the Simbas took place. He was sent to prison and lived alongside the martyrdom of numerous male and female religious companions. In 1972, back in Germany for a vacation, he died before he could return to his mission in Africa. He was buried in the cemetery of our school in Handrup.
The life of Fr. Middendorf was marked by his passion for his vocation as a Priest of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the service of the lowest of the low and the needy, in a spirit of simplicity and heart-felt warmth as a true prophet of love and servant of reconciliation. The tradition of the Talmud is extremely valid for him when it says: "In each generation there are thirty-six just men or saints who live among the nations. They live peacefully and without being noticed by the people of their time. Only in times of extreme necessity and of the greatest dangers does the action of these men appear, eluding disaster. Afterwards they return to anonymity again. Without them", continues the Talmud, "the world could not survive".
The author, Fr. B. Bothe, S.C.J. (GE, 1936), is a Doctor of Philosophy. He worked in the field of education in his Province, of which he was also Provincial. He is currently a member of the Community of Freiburg. He has dedicated this work to the "Club of the Friends of Fr. Middendorf" (Carlos Luis Suárez, S.C.J.).
3. Andrew Ryder, S.C.J. / Inculturation and Mission / A study of mission theology since Vatican II, / with special reference to the question of inculturation (Studia Dehoniana 41) / Roma, Centro Generali Studi, 1997. 8‘ 135pp.
The author, an Irish Dehonian priest, wanted, by means of this short essay on inculturation, to make a contribution to the preparation of the General Chapter planned in 1997, which was called to reflect on the missionary activity of the Dehonian Congregation.
Convinced that the new paradigm of the mission is inculturation; the author explores the idea mostly through the examination of significant documents of the universal and local Church.
The first chapter analyzes the emergence, at first implicit and then explicit, of the concept of inculturation and its connection with the development of the themes Mission and Evangelization, as it is found in the council Decree Ad Gentes, and then as it is found in certain papal documents: in Populorum Progressio, especially Evangelii Nuntiandi and in Redemptoris Missio. According to the author a new paradigm of mission emerges when these texts are analyzed: it is "a divine work and through it a salvation can be achieved which embraces also the quest for justice and freedom, with respect for the cultures of those to whom the missionaries have been sent" (p.24).
In the second chapter the meaning of inculturation is examined in connection with interreligious dialogue, another crucial theme if one is to understand the current mission of the Church. It begins with a clarification of interreligious dialogue - considered as an attitude which must precede any valid inculturation - mostly by means of an analysis of the two documents of the Secretariat for non-Christians published in 1984 and 1991. The author concludes his discussion of these texts by emphasizing the fundamental role of interreligious dialogue; stating that he considers it to be a form, even if incomplete, of proclamation, as well as an expression, of the service of the Church to the Kingdom of God in history. Following this there is a further study of inculturation, undertaken by examining two documents: A Thesis on the Local Church by the Theological Commission of the Federation of Asiatic Bishops, 1990, and the document produced by the African Synod of 1994. The examination of the documents brings out the close link, between inculturation and the local Church, which develops and becomes enriched thanks to the meeting between the Gospel and the culture of a particular people, without neglecting the involvement of the local Church in the field of justice and of the dignity of the human person. Inculturation, which touches the fundamental aspects of ecclesial life such as liturgy, catechesis, prayer and theological reflection, is seen as a dynamic process inspired by the Incarnation and the Easter Mystery.
He then passes to the third chapter, dedicated to the theme "Liberation and Inculturation". If, in the preceding chapter, attention was turned to Asia and Africa, it is now on Latin America and takes into consideration the theology of liberation as a model of inculturation, such as emerged in the last three Conferences of CELAM: at Medellin, Puebla and Santo Domingo. At the end of this section the author affirms that the inculturation of the Gospel implies a process of liberation.
Lastly, the fourth chapter describes the missionary commitment of the Dehonian Congregation after Vatican II: the lines of renewal, which emerged above all in the decisions of the Chapter and on an operative level, are indicated, utilizing the answers to a questionnaire distributed among the Dehonian missionaries present in Rome for a course to bring them up-to-date with the latest developments. There is also a recollection of the attempts which were undertaken in the field, to set in motion the process of inculturation in missionary action.
The essay would have gained in richness if the author, after the study of the documents, had offered his own organic and systematic view of inculturation: theological foundations, its component parts, fields of application and pastoral orientation. The analysis of the theology of liberation in the documents of CELAM, which is careful and balanced, sometimes appears too dependent on the evaluation of some writers and their views on the theology of liberation: Gutierrez, Sobrino, Marins. Even in its brevity, however, the work offers a valid contribution to students and pastoral workers, to encourage them to question themselves on the urgency and the task of inculturation.
(Giuseppe Cavallotto)
OTHER RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF THE S.C.J. BROTHERHOOD
ADÉRITO GOMES BARBOSA
Jovens com Deus Pai
às Portas do Terceiro Milénio
(Lisboa, Ed. Paulinas 1998).
F. ARMELLINI - G. MORETTI
Tinha rosto e palavras de homem.
Um perfil de Jesus
(Lisboa, Ed. Paulinas 1998).
AGOSTINHO PINTO
Maria com o Espírito Santo
na vida cristã
(Ponta Delgada, Ed. ECCE 1998)
AVELINO DÍEZ GARCÍA
Eucaristía y Comunidad SCJ
(Madrid, Gráficas Dehon 1998).
AVELINO DÍEZ GARCÍA
Tras las Huellas del amor
Siguiendo el itinerario espiritual del P. Dehon
(no date).
ANDRÉ PERROUX
Léon Dehon passionné du Christ, passionné du monde
(The figure of Fr. Dehon proposed in a vital way to the Dehonian laity)
(no date).
PAUL J. McGUIRE
A Spirituality of the Heart
(no date).