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PAGE 5—October 25,1973
Retirement: Answering Life’s Sacred Call
BY DR. THOMAS FRANCOEUR
In any discussion on retirement, much depends on our
self-image, our recognition of the power of life and the purpose
of this lifepower in us. For example, if a person lives a life of
usefulness for 65 years, but then retires and feels “washed up,”
he will coast miserably unto death. For this person, “business”
is “life”.
Another person may distinguish between his business or
professional value and his life-giving value. Retirement for him is
but an opportunity to continue, with new freedom, the sacred
task of bringing life and hope-thrust to those around him. This
person realizes that there is never a point reached where our
selfless love, interest and encouragement are without value to
those around us.
Much is said and written about preparing for retirement by
foreseeing a second career, having hobbies and things on hand to
putter with, having a garden or workbench. Little stress is laid
however on the orientation and organization of our lives in
keeping with the deepest call of our hearts, the call to give life.
This orientation brings peace and authentic sense of purpose
from our earliest years with relatively minor adjustments called
for at that rather vaguely defined time of retirement.
It may seem that this discussion is being rather naive and
unrealistic. After all, we “have to live,” we “have a right to a
good rest.”
Indeed, “we have to live,” and retirement doesn’t call a halt
to that. “The right to rest” is an undeniable one. However,
thinking has to be sharp at this point. Life is to be lived, but for
others; rest is essential but as re-creation for renewed self-gift.
But doesn’t retirement mean we’ve done our bit? Again, the
fact is that at this point of life we have a mature wisdom to give
and more time in which to give it. The Christian is called
essentially to healing, and as life moves on we become more and
more sensitive to the many facets of this power, in our voice,
our mood, our attention, our patient listening, our touch.
Continuing education is a term used today to connote a
never ending process of examining and re-examining to discover
our powers of learning and of teaching. With retirement age
coming sooner and our life-span increasing, the time available to
us for leisurely growth in awareness of our accumulated wisdom
has greatly increased. This presents us with not only the
opportunity but also the fundamental obligation to share this
life-wisdom with those following us.
Even though of prime importance, space has not permitted
discussion of health and economic stability in retirement. We
have seen rather life’s essential responsibility to give life. This is
the bell ringing true. Retirement is the opportunity to devote
our richest years, in the freedom of our own terms and time, to
answering life’s sacred call.
Religious Education
And Retirement
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
Retirement may be a mixed blessing. A very successful man
facing retirement recently told me, “All these years I’ve worked
hard. I worked to build up a business and a reputation. I worked
to provide security for my wife and children. Then money was
needed to send the kids through college. Since I was a teenager
about all I’ve ever done is work.
“Now I’m faced with retirement. I look forward to some
well-deserved rest, and a chance to do some of the things we
have looked forward to. But I’m also hesitant to stop working.
My wife and I have few friends because we have worked so
constantly. We have no hobbies. I’m just afraid that we will have
a lot of time on our hands. I’m not quite sure how I feel now
about retiring.”
His reaction seems rather typical of many men and women
who face retirement after years of hard but satisfying work.
They sacrificed so much during the years that now they seem to
have little to fill the vacuum left by hours that had been
crowded with work.
As I reflected on this man’s observations, I happened to
come across a story about a retired man who developed a new,
rewarding career from what had been a long dormant hobby.
Wondering how to make the most of retirement years, he
remembered that he had once enjoyed painting. He set out to
improve his painting, discovered that photos might be helpful,
and bought a camera. Gradually his interest in photography
developed into a new part-time career with considerable
satisfaction and fulfillment. Painting remained a hobby to bring
added enjoyment to himself and others.
That example suggested to me the importance of preparation
for retirement. It seems to me that a very important task of
parent and teacher is to help persons learn to use leisure time
creatively.
The man who once had a hobby of painting, had a resource
to fall back on. Many others do not, because they have either
had little leisure time or never learned to use it creatively.
Religious educators can assist young and old toward more
creative attitudes toward themselves and the world about them.
The relatively new crisis situation of enforced retirement poses a
serious challenge to religious educators of young and old alike.
The Christian community has a challenge and an opportunity to
help Christians leam to more fully use and enjoy the creative
potential God has given them.
Man is not made for work alone. In God’s image he is made
to appreciate and enjoy the world around him. Like his creator
he is made to explore that world creatively and to develop the
creative skills. God relaxed on the seventh day, and the
Judaeo-Christian tradition of Sabbath and Sunday rest remind
us that creative leisure is a God-willed value. In a sense
retirement can be a satisfying extension of the Sabbath-Sunday
rest. Retirement could well provide some of life’s most creative,
satisfying, and enriching years.
A second dimension of preparation for fruitful years of
retirement is in the direction of generous involvement with
others. Most people facing retirement have years of experience
and a wealth of humanity in addition to specific skills to share
with others. One retiring .woman told me of her plans to
volunteer for work in a nearby hospital, doing whatever might be
needed. Others have found ways of assisting young students by
tutoring or instructing. Some offer their talents on a
consultative basis. Still others help young families in a variety of
ways from baby sitting to providing valuable professional
guidance. What is most necessary is a willingness to share with
others the fruits of one’s own years of experience and developed
skills.
Sinners
Without Guilt
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous Kansas psychiatrist,
apparently hasn’t retired, despite the fact he is now in his 81st
year. At least I would not label as a retiree this man who
lectures and teaches on the national level, supervises clinics in
Chicago and Topeka, and will have three books published in
1973.
In one of those texts, “Whatever Became of Sin,” Dr.
Menninger views modem man’s loss of the sense of sin as a not
altogether healthy development. He cites society’s new attitude
toward sexual activities, especially masturbation, as more
significant of the 20th century’s changed temper, philosophy
and morality “than any other phenomenon I can think of.”
What was once seen as a sin now is judged less a vice than a
pleasant experience, perhaps even a normal and healthy one.
What troubles the elderly psychiatrist is that all other in
seemed to have vanished from the contemporary scene as <.
The new understanding of sexuality has not been paralleled, ii
his view, by a fresh appreciation of ruthlessness or cruelty, ot
rape and other forms of violence. Menninger considers these not
just crimes, but sins also, and believes that assaults upon the
environment fit into the same category.
When experts seek to explain the decline in confessions
within Roman Catholicism, some mention, but do not stress,
this current forgetfulness of sin. It may be a mote substantive
cause for the dwindling Saturday lines of penitents than we
realize. After all, if no one sins, if no one really believes in sin, if
nothing is a sin, then why do we need a sacrament which brings
forgiveness from sin and freedom from guilt?
In the rush to rid ourselves of “hangups” and in reaction to
sin-dominated religion or religious training, we very likely haw
gone too far.
No one wants to resurrect a sick, obsessive sense of sin and
guilt. However, to cultivate a healthy, constructive sense of sin
and guilt is quite a different matter.
People with a sick sense of sin turn excessively inwards. They
dwell forever on their mistakes, refuse to forgive themselves,
will not allow God and others to forgive them. Here there is no
growth through guilt.
On the other hand, persons with a healthy sense of sin can
honestly acknowledge their failures, forgive themselves, accept
God’s and their neighbor’s forgiveness, then move on to a better
life. Guilt, in these cases, brings personal growth.
Catholics who possess a sick sense of sin and guilt may
confess not at all or too often or with great pain and anguish.
Those with a sound sense of sin and guilt can find, instead,
the sacrament of Penance a source of great peace, a difficult but
healing experience, a fountain of inspiration and help for future
improvement.
Jesus came to save us from our sins. His name means and we
call him “savior.” To believe that in the depth of our heart and
to cry out for forgiveness requires within us a sense of our own
sinfulness and a certain guilt for past failings.
“RETIREMENT . . .is but an opportunity to
continue, with new freedom, the sacred task of
bringing life and hope-thrust ...” Mrs. Florie Staples,
(NC PHOTO)
70, of Detroit, takes care of a child at General Hospital
as one of her duties in the federal Foster Grandparent
program.
To meet the merciful Lord through faith in confession and
walk out thoroughly liberated, free from our heavy inner
burden is a joy that many feel and few can express. But it comes
only to those who know they have sinned and are willing to
admit it.
Zealots Led Jewish Nation to Destruction
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
If Palestine of New Testament times had its liberals in the
Pharisees and its conservatives in the Sadducees, it also had its
radicals in the Zealots.
The Zealots shared with the Pharisees the concept of Israel as
a theocracy, a nation-religion with Yahweh (God) as the only
ruler. They differed however in that the Pharisees rejected the
use of force to bring about political independence and accepted
subjugation by Rome.
Quite to the contrary, the Zealots considered acceptance of
foreign domination and payment of taxes to a foreign power as
blasphemy against Yahweh and believed that every Jew was
duty bound to rebel against Roman rule.
In our modern terminology the Zealots were chauvinists and
terrorists, whose belief that messianism was entirely limited to
the recovery of national independence, was directly responsible
for Rome’s crushing of the Jews in the bloody Jewish War of
66-73.
At first the Zealots were but a militant minority whose
fanaticism was rejected by most of the Jews of Palestine. Their
terrorist tactics were directed as much against Jews as foreigners
and they had no popular base of support.
The Romans, however, played into the Zealots hands by the
actions of several procurators who alienated the moderate Jews
and made martyrs of Zealot terrorists.
Flavius Josephus, who is our primary source of information
about the Zealots, calls them “brigands” and describes the
efforts of Felix (procurator from 52-61 A.D.) to suppress them.
Many were crucified under his administration in an effort to rid
Palestine of their radical influence, but for each Zealot martyred
several more appeared.
A dispute in Caesarea between Syrians and Jews was decided
by Rome in favor of the Syrians, further alienating the Jewish
moderates. The procurator Gessius Florus (64-66 A.D.) was a
tyrant who plundered the countryside, accepted bribes and
generally showed his contempt for the Jews.
In Caesarea, already a center of discontent and resentment,
the gentiles were given preferential civil rights and privileges that
resulted in shops being built in front of the entrance to the
synagogue making it impossible for the Jews to enter. The
incident was appealed to Florus who offered no redress.
Finally, the situation flared into open rebellion in Jerusalem
when the procurator took money from the Temple treasury. In
contempt, the Jews passed around a basket asking for donations
for the “indigent” Florus. His reaction to the collection was to
turn part of the city over to his soldiers to plunder.
Still in control, the moderate Sadducees counselled the Jews
to patience and non-violence, but the soldiers took the Jews’
meekness as scorn and a slaughter ensued. The people rallied to
the Zealots, withdrew to the Temple and the rebellion had
begun.
The Romans pulled out of Jerusalem and returned to
Caesarea. The Zealots, with their still reluctant allies, the more
moderate Pharisees, enjoyed several early but insignificant
victories over the Roman garrison troops.
Their victories ended abruptly with the arrival of Vespasian
to take over as field commander. Galilee, under the command of
Flavius Josephus, was subdued, followed by all of Northern
Palestine, the Jordan Valley, Samaria, Jericho, Qumran, and
other strongholds until only Jerusalem and the fortress of
Masada remained.
The death of Nero brought a respite in 68 A.D. Vespasian
was proclaimed emperor and Titus, his son, took over as field
commander. During the lull, civil war had erupted among the
Jews in Jerusalem as the Zealots struggled for power.
Finally, the siege of Jerusalem began in the spring of 70 and
by September the city had fallen with great slaughter and
destruction.
The Zealots retreated to Masada, the mountaintop
stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea, where they held out until
73, when 1,000 chose suicide rather than capture by the
Romans.
Like the Sadducees, the Zealots disappeared from history
after 72, the victims of their own fanaticism. With them, the
post-exilic Jewish nation went down to destruction.
(NC PHOTO)
“THOSE WITH A SOUND SENSE OF sin and guilt
can find, instead, the sacrament of Penance a source of
great peace, a difficult, but healing experience, a
fountain of inspiration and help for future
improvement.” A penitent kneels before a priest in a
confessional.