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 THE PRACTICAL PROPHET: Pastoral Writings, by Bishop Ken Untener.
Introduced by Elizabeth Picken,
C.S.J., Jeffrey Donner and Walter L.
Farrell, S.J. Foreword by the Most
Rev. Joseph L. Imesch. Paulist Press.
278 pp. $19.95.
Reviewed by the REV. LAWRENCE M.
VENTLINE, D.Min., a priest and psychotherapist
of the Archdiocese of Detroit for
three decades. Father Ventline is a longtime
religion writer for The Detroit News and
The Michigan Catholic, and recipient of
the 1996 Detroit Human Rights Unsung
Hero Award. Securing Serenity in Troubling
Times, the latest of his seven books,
is available from lawrenceventline@comcast.net or www.careofthesoul.org.
“FRESH AIR” and “faithful to Vatican
II” were my immediate reactions to
reading this collection of
the late Kenneth Untener’s
writings. This bishop of
Saginaw, Michigan, died of
leukemia in 2004. Like St.
Thérèse of Lisieux, who said
she “wanted to spend her
heaven doing good on
earth,” this theologian continues
to grace believers
with his nationally popular
“Little Books” for daily
Advent and Lenten inspiration.
No wonder his global perspective is
so wide—his 400-page dissertation in
1969 at Rome’s Gregorian University
dealt with “The Church-World Relationship
According to the Writings of
Yves Congar, O.P.” Moderating his
research was Jesuit Rene Latourelle.
He grew up on Detroit’s Belle Isle.
Living in a family of four sisters and
four brothers kept the ever-smiling Ken
humble. In fact, following a term as
rector of St. John’s Provincial Seminary
in Plymouth, Michigan, at his episcopal
ordination he introduced himself in
the packed Civic Arena of Saginaw by
saying, “Hi! I’m Ken, and I will be your
waiter for a long time.”
In fact, he was. From 1980 until his
death, he remained bishop of Saginaw,
which is in mid-Michigan and Michigan’s
thumb.
Unafraid to speak truth to power, he
was always the gentleman, having
learned a collegial style from the late
Cardinal John Dearden when he was
his chief aide. During those years, Cardinal
Dearden was the architect of the
1976 Call to Action speak-up sessions
and home-study groups on Church,
World and Kingdom topics. Salt and
pepper are passed together, like truth
and love, Untener repeated.
A compilation of his writings, this
tome has six parts which range from “Vision and Creative Imagination,”
through “Liturgy and the Word,” “Ministry of Mercy,” “Consistent
Ethic of Life” and
“Ministry of the Prophet,”
to “The Wider Church.” It
includes some of his few but
thoughtful, timely and theological
interventions before
brother bishops at national
conference meetings.
Inviting his Church back
to its roots, like the prophets
of the Old Testament,
Bishop Untener wonders
about “two levels” operating
among hierarchy and “magisterial
role with gnostic overtones, as though
we have a source of knowledge that
others do not have.” “Does not the
Church, until the eschaton [end time],
always need to know more than it
knows? These are questions I can only
suggest for further discussion,” the
teacher-bishop concludes.
Bemoaning centralized authority
today, at the end of his writings in this
book, Untener reminds readers of an
early history of the Church “when
there was only a small number of dioceses,
no canon law, no Curia, and very
few external structures connecting the
Diocese of Rome to the other dioceses.
There was internal unity but much
external diversity.
“Each bishop exercised full responsibility
for his own diocese, while
remaining in communion with the college
of bishops, particularly through
communion with the bishop of Rome.
Almost all the things that today require
a dispensation from or clearance from
Rome were handled by the local bishop
with his priests and ministers.”
In 1984, for example, an article in America magazine by Untener concludes
that “having experienced the
peak of centralization, recent generations
of Catholics quite understandably
think of the Church as a
large corporation with headquarters in
Rome and ‘branch offices’ around the
world.” Untener relates an incident
while the crucial chapter on collegiality
in Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church) regarding
the pope’s role was being written. The
pope had suggested that the theological
commission insert the phrase “The
pope is answerable to God alone.” But
they responded rightly that this would
be an oversimplification.
Interventions and reflective thought
like this fill this refreshing and encompassing
view of Church and world.
Here was a gentle voice willing to speak
out when so many simply choose to say
nothing about fruitful living today. The
unafraid Untener chose “feed my
sheep” as his motto, and lived it.
You can order THE PRACTICAL PROPHET: Pastoral Writings from St.
Francis Bookshop.
WHEN WOMEN BUILD THE KINGDOM: Who We Are, What We Do, and How We Relate, by Leslie Williams.
The Crossroad Publishing Company.
206 pp. $17.95.
GOD'S TROUBLEMAKERS: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World, by Katharine Rhodes Henderson.
Continuum Books. 247 pp.
$24.95.
Reviewed by PATRICIA M. BERLINER,
C.S.J., Ph.D. She is a Sister of St. Joseph
of Brentwood, New York, and a psychologist
in private practice. She writes and
presents workshops developed from a
holistic, psycho-spiritual perspective.
THE FIRST IMAGE that
came to mind when I finished
reading these two
books was that of the yin/yang circle, which has two
flowing segments, one black
and one white. These segments
seem separate and
opposed but, at the center,
they touch. The center,
which is neither, somehow
contains both. These are yin/yang
books, representing the “right” and
“left” of 21st-century women’s spirituality.
Leslie Williams, who holds a doctorate
in English and American literature,
lives with her family in Texas,
where they have founded the Building
the Kingdom ministries, which include
a retreat center and a restaurant called
St. Martha’s Hideaway.
Williams starts with the idea that
life is “not about being comfortable,
but about being faithful....The purpose
of our time here isn’t about happiness
and comfort. It’s coincidentally about
love, obedience, and helping others,
but primarily it’s about our relationship
with God. Beginning now. Never
ending.”
Interpreting Scripture “from a woman’s
point of view” and depending on
the Holy Spirit, Williams has built a
theology, psychology and spirituality of
a “Household God,” who, she posits,
invites us to build the Kingdom.
To call Dr. Williams’s God a “Household
God” is not to denigrate the real
power of God, but to note her emphasis
on God’s intervention in the personal
lives of the women whose stories
she tells.
Although she has set out to relate
how “the unique perspective, gifts, and
attitudes that women bring to their
preaching, teaching and praying” shape
their contribution to the building of the
Kingdom, some of her examples of
God’s attentive presence to us were, to
me, almost embarrassing to read. For
example, one woman, almost at the
point of desperation looking for a prom
dress for her daughter, finally found
one and recognized that
“God loves us so much!”
Dr. Williams does venture
a little more closely to
the center of the yin/yang
image when she cites the
story of the Good Samaritan: “Neighbors are all
those we meet in the course
of our daily lives. The Bible
says that mercy is the key to
neighborliness—mercy to
the lovable as well as the
unlovable.”
This connection at the center
brings us to the work of Dr. Katharine
Rhodes Henderson, a Presbyterian minister
and vice president of Auburn
Theological Seminary in New York.
Henderson is also the founder of Face
to Face/Faith to Faith, a multi-faith
youth program educating leaders for
the United States and conflict areas
around the world. Henderson asked
whether, in our complex world, individuals
could still make a difference.
How might adding justice to mercy
enhance “God’s Household,” by which
she means the whole world?
Henderson interviewed 21 women
who, in simply living out their personal
spirituality, became “God’s Troublemakers.”
As such, they have brought
about significant changes in the public
realm.
Although they all critique mainstream
religion, none has given up on
it. Rather, drawn by a call to practice “resistance faith,” a stance they would
not have envisioned or chosen, “each
has allowed herself to feel the gap
between the world as it is and a vision
of how it could be, and has devoted herself to making up the difference.”
One of the women, who had been
attacked for being a Jew, years later
formed Seeking Common Ground, a
program where Jewish and Palestinian
teenagers could build a community
together.
Another, a Roman Catholic nun (Sister
Helen Prejean), who in her prison
ministry walked with prisoners to death
row, became an advocate against the
death penalty. A director of a day-care
center, aghast at what she saw when
she visited a local shelter, first went
out and bought peanut butter and jelly,
and then formed a program to benefit
shelter families.
In God’s Household, God stands
with us at the bottom, from which are
spun the intricate webs of interconnection
and patterns of personal and
social change. From the 21 women she
interviewed, Henderson learned that
“the dark mass of matter they sought to
transform was themselves.”
While Williams’s work is based in a
traditionalist view of women’s relationship
to God, others and the world,
and Henderson’s evolved from a seemingly
opposite political and philosophical
stance, each is empowered by
compassion.
We have come full circle and back to
the center, where we see the convergence
and inseparability of yin and
yang. From whichever point we start,
people of faith, rooted and grounded in
God, touch one another. And, by that
touch, we and our world change.
While we are not likely equally comfortable
in each of the halves of the
yin and yang, if we learn anything,
whether from the right, the left or the
center, let it be that the Household
God and God’s Household are, at root,
one and the same. God privileges us by
inviting us to share in the task of transforming
the world.
You can order WHEN WOMEN BUILD THE KINGDOM: Who We Are, What We Do, and How We Relate and GOD'S TROUBLEMAKERS: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World from St.
Francis Bookshop.
HOSANNAS OF AN ORDINARY LIFE, by Joris John Heise. AuthorHouse. 35
pp. $10.75.
ROSA MYSTICA: Poems From the Rosary and Other Poems, by Mary
Agnes Dalrymple. MaryAnka Press.
61 pp. $10.
Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER HEFFRON,
an assistant editor of this publication. He
is also its poetry editor.
SOMETIMES THE MOST PROFOUND
moments in life are the most inconspicuous:
gathering leaves in the yard
on a November day, watching the
evening news, eating a bowl of Cheerios.
These seemingly bland occasions—according to poet Joris John Heise—are
the stuff of poetry. He might just be
right.
Heise explores, celebrates and, in
some instances, mourns
these moments in Hosannas
of an Ordinary Life—33 poems that tackle
everything from the war
in Iraq to crossword puzzles
to the time he shot
his brother in the rear
with a BB gun.
His poetry explores the
intricacies of the human
senses. In “Views: Best of
the Northwest,” he writes:
“Pictures, like a poet, only
point. It is to see that we blind people
are called to, to see dreams and visions,
more than eye can see.” Like any good
poet, Heise seeks to go beyond that
which our senses can detect.
Some poems that ring especially
true: “Julie Did Not Tell Us” revels
in the purity of a child’s exuberance;
“Pillsbury Frozen Biscuits?” illustrates
how an item found in your grocer’s
freezer can be a sustainer of life; “All
Us Couples” plumbs the hurt—and
healing—we impart on our partners.
Heise’s work should ultimately be
praised for its simple beauty and deft
observation of life and living, as well as
its twinge of pathos, yet some individual
poems border on the narrative style
a bit too much. Even so, Hosannas of an
Ordinary Life offers whole stanzas of
wisdom, insight and themes worth
deep reflection.
Rosa Mystica: Poems From the Rosary
and Other Poems, by Mary Agnes
Dalrymple, is a collection of poetry
that is, as stated on the back of the
book, “arranged according to the grid
of the Rosary.” But as a whole collection,
it’s much more.
Separated into two parts, both sections
celebrate the stories, people and
moments of the Bible that are central
to the Catholic faith: The birth of Jesus,
his Baptism, the scourging at the pillar
and his torturous walk with the cross
are poeticized with a charming, preternatural
flair.
For example, in Dalrymple’s poem
“The Kingdom of God,” she writes:
“God came through an answered question.
The Angel said, ‘Will you?’ And
Mary said, ‘Yes.’ She opened her heart
to God. The way honeysuckle accepts
the bee, and river receives
the rain.” Most of these
poems echo this kind of
subtlety. Her less-is-more
approach is executed
beautifully here. What a
pleasure it is to pore over
her poetry!
Though certainly biblical
in nature, Dalrymple’s
poetry is hardly a Sunday
school lesson. Her poems
are expressions of deep
love. Minimalist in style,
Rosa Mystica: Poems From the Rosary and
Other Poems provides a bounty of deep
faith and meditation to feast upon. Bon
appétit!
You can order HOSANNAS OF AN ORDINARY LIFE and ROSA MYSTICA: Poems From the Rosary and Other Poems from St. Francis Bookshop.
MAN AND WOMAN HE CREATED THEM: A Theology of the Body, by
John Paul II. Translated and introduced
by Michael M. Waldstein.
Foreword by Cardinal Christoph
Schönborn. Preface by Christopher West. Pauline Books & Media. 735
pp. $29.95.
Reviewed by HILARION KISTNER, O.F.M.,
who studied Scripture at The Catholic University
of America in Washington, D.C.,
and the Pontifical Biblical Institute in
Rome. He edits Sunday Homily Helps for St. Anthony Messenger Press.
NOT AN EASY BOOK, Man and Woman
He Created Them is a new translation of
Pope John Paul II’s pivotal book that
contains his thinking about love and
marriage, including contraception.
It begins with a short Foreword by
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, a short
Preface by Christopher West and a
lengthy (128 pages) Introduction by
Michael Waldstein.
The Introduction
provides background for John Paul II’s
lengthy text (533 pages).
The Introduction describes the complicated
process involved in the composition
and final editing of The
Theology of the Body. This
was a pre-papal (1970s) book
on sexuality and marriage,
which was developed later
into his catecheses. There is
text comparison between
the Polish originals and later
Italian versions.
This book also traces the
influence of various thinkers
on John Paul’s thought.
According to Waldstein, The
Theology of the Body is “a
catechesis proposed by the
Bishop of Rome for the universal
Church on the center of Christian faith,
the ‘great mystery’ of love (Ephesians
5).” John Paul provides reflections,
analyses and meditations. His main
source is Scripture, with a helping hand
from St. John of the Cross. To get the
most out of the Introduction, readers
should know a good bit of philosophy,
theology, biblical exegesis, anthropology
and psychology.
After plowing through Waldstein’s
difficult Introduction, we might think
John Paul’s teaching points would
be simpler, but they are not. He uses all
the aforementioned ways of thinking,
and his analysis of biblical texts
involves tight-knit exegesis. His main
text is Ephesians 5:21-33. Also very
important is Genesis 2:24: “That is why
a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife, and the two of
them become one body” (which is
quoted in Ephesians 5:31, as well as in
Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7).
There is constant repetition and
weaving together of texts. Sometimes
one text bolsters or clarifies another. At
other times, it is easy to get lost in the
welter of citations together with all the
analyses and reflections. Sometimes,
the repetitions become tedious. At
other times, they gradually clarify John
Paul’s statements. The one helpful
thing is that he frequently begins a catechesis
with a summary of previous
material.
A very positive feature of Man and
Woman He Created Them is the almost
50-page Index of Words and Phrases.
There is also a Scripture Index of six
pages. These, plus a 12-page Bibliography,
make the work invaluable for
those who can handle the
material.
There are people who criticize
John Paul II’s work for
not keeping in touch with
modern times. They think
he is too rigid in his opposition
to artificial contraception.
In fact, they may
be astounded to find out
that John Paul II condemns
those who use infertile periods
to evade procreation
without just reasons (see
#125,3, p. 637). Critics will point out
that the pope’s catecheses are not infallible
statements and do not even have
the authority of encyclicals or other
papal documents.
This reviewer, however, thinks John
Paul makes a strong case for his position.
There may be reasons to argue
about one or the other interpretation
of Scripture. But I think he presents a
beautiful vision of what love is all
about. His description of married
love presents an ideal that will appeal
to many. The Gospels can make
tough demands. They are not only
documents of joy. They are also documents
that highlight the cross and
resurrection.
A book like Christopher West’s
Good News About Sex & Marriage:
Answers to Your Honest Questions about
Catholic Teaching (Servant Books/St.
Anthony Messenger Press, $11.95,
audiobook, $37.95) presents the main
points of Man and Woman He Created
Them and other works of John Paul II
in a simpler form. There are people
who have been inspired by West’s book
and have come to appreciate John
Paul’s work because of West’s efforts.
Anyone who sees the sad state of
many marriages today will be grateful
for the positive presentation of
married love that Pope John Paul II
provides.
You can order MAN AND WOMAN HE CREATED THEM: A Theology of the Body from St. Francis Bookshop.
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