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Sr Bartholomea was appointed a regional superior with a council of three members in July 2017.  Two of the council members can hardly attend the meetings, since one is principal of a college; the other is the only doctor in a busy hospital.  The third councillor, according to Sr Bartholomea, is not so cooperative.  Often the decisions are taken by Sr Bartholomea alone, as she feels that convoking a council all the time is not possible for her.

Let us see who a major superior is, and what s/he should do in such cases—as also the role of the council.

CIC (the Latin Code of Canon Law), Canon 620 defines who the major superiors are.  CCEO (the Oriental Canon Law), Canon 418 §1 defines and gives the list of the major superiors.

Who are Major Superiors?

President of a monastic confederation, superior of a monastery sui iuris, superior general of an order or congregation, provincial superior, ‘their vicars and others who have the power like that of provincials, and also those who, in the absence of the above-mentioned persons, in the interim legitimately succeed them in office.’

As regards the power of governance, the major superiors of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right are also Ordinaries or Hierarchs (because they share the power of governance deriving from their sacred ordination that they receive at their ordination but they are not Local Ordinaries/ Hierarchs) as far as their own members are concerned (CIC c. 134 §1; CCEO c. 984§3). CCEO c. 418 § 2 clearly indicates that ‘under the designation “superiors of monks and other religious” does not come either the Local Ordinary/Hierarch or the Patriarch, with due regard for the canons that assign to the Patriarch or Local Ordinary Hierarch power over them. Vicars take the place of the major superior, when the latter is absent or prevented from exercising the office due to illness, etc.  However, those substituting for a major superior in an ad hoc manner (only for a particular purpose or an emergency) exercise only delegated power and are not major superiors.

The distinct roles and the extent of the power of major superiors must be stipulated in the Constitutions/Statutes of each institute and exercised in accordance with it.  The scope and expression of this authority can vary greatly from institute to institute.   The figure of the superior general affirms that no part of the institute is independent and all its organisms are parts of the whole.  At the same time, the constitutions must specify the competence of the superiors at each level so as to apply the principle of subsidiarity stipulated in Ecclesiae Sanctae II, 18.  At each level the superiors must be given the freedom to carry out their tasks fully and efficiently, unless the common good of the institute demands that the superior general should appropriately intervene.

The Role of Councils

CIC c. 627§1 and CCEO c. 422§1 state that superiors should have their own councils as specified in their constitutions and that they must make use of these councils in the exercise of their offices.  This council is made mandatory in order to guarantee real cooperation and participation of the members according to the Church’s teaching on co-responsibility.  It also aims to prevent the superior from committing errors and to safeguard against autocratic power.

Council members are chosen because of their wisdom, experience, and ability to assist the superior with good advice and appropriate consent, and they have distinct roles.  The superior has a council, but is not part of the council.  While seeking consent/advice, the superior does not vote.  The superior votes only when a collegial vote is required (e.g., dismissal).  The council is normally not a decision-making body, but is an integral part of the decision-making process regarding serious matters.  They are to assist the superior by sharing insights, evaluating initiatives, raising issues, extending support and participate in the council discussions with courage and creativity.

The Codes provide more than a dozen instances where the superior requires consent/advice of the council.  According to the tradition and spirit of the institute, the constitution may provide more such instances, but care must be taken not to prevent the superior from appropriate flexibility and timeliness in responding to situations.  Once the advice or consent is given, the role of the council ends, and it is up to the superior to act or not act on it. The process of convoking the council, presenting the matter in question and seeking consultation/consent are made mandatory in order to serve the community by making use of a wider range of knowledge and experience.  This would prevent autocratic decisions/actions regarding members and the goods of the institute.

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What is Spirituality?

This new column will present spirituality in practice. How do we live a good life? What difference do religious practices make? Are we spiritual just because we spend time in church? We begin by clarifying what spirituality is.

What is a computer? What is a chapathi or an idli? What is the meaning of a shirt, or school or basketball court?

The answers to such questions are clear—and easy. We know the exact meaning of the question. We understand the answers.

This way, we can get to know rather precisely even things we have not seen. Thus, even if I have never seen an ostrich or a kangaroo, I can get quite an accurate idea of them from pictures and descriptions.

This is not the case with the term, “spirituality.” There is no way to describe the “spirit” or anything having to do with it. Hence, traditionally, wise teachers tend to use symbols and stories. Think of the parables of Jesus, or the stories of other traditions.

Spirituality is linked to religion, but is not the same as religious practice. One can be “religious” without being spiritual, or spiritual without belonging to any organized religion.

Eating properly or walking will help my bodily fitness. Thinking or reading this article can give you new ideas or clarify older views. Going to college will have given you added knowledge. What does a “spiritual” activity do?

There is hardly any agreement on this. Thus, a person may be very strict on going for Sunday Mass, but have no scruple in speaking ill of others. Is such a person spiritual? Or someone may observe the dietary rules of one’s religion (e.g., eat only vegetarian food), but cheat customers in business. Worse still, there are ideologies of hatred that claim to be sanctioned by God. Does God want anyone to hate and hurt others?

What is spirituality? How do we cultivate our spiritual life?

There is a strange criterion of fidelity in Jesus’ teaching. As we read in his account of the Last Judgement (which is a way of telling us what is most important), people are rewarded or rejected eternally for some very “material” activities—feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, etc. Hardly any “spiritual” activity is mentioned here! The final “balance sheet” says nothing about praying or attending Mass or joining religious orders, or being celibate. What then is a spiritual life? Who is truly spiritual?

A short definition

If you want a short definition of spirituality, here it is:

LIVING LOVINGLY, WISELY AND RESPONSIBLY IN ONE’S CONCRETE SETTING, USING ONE’S GIFTS AND ACCEPTING ONE’S LIMITATIONS.

Spirituality is a way of life. It is not simply about a particular set of activities, such as church attendance, or avoiding meat on some days, or going on pilgrimage.

If we take Jesus seriously, the main trait of our daily life will be love. We need not sound pious or spend long hours in a place of worship to be spiritual. But we need to treat those around us with love and respect. We will not sing beautiful hymns in church and gossip during breakfast. Nor be harsh to the girl in the kitchen. Nor neglect the sick and the less talented.

To be loving in concrete demands WISDOM and RESPONSIBILITY. We need to take wise decisions, putting first things first. It would be foolish to spend much time and money on luxuries and neglect one’s duties, or damage our health through addictions. Thus, care of health, learning, emotional balance and relationships matter far more than watching TV or wearing a stylish dress.

GIFTS: Each of us is gifted. My gifts may be similar to yours, or different. The parable of the talents tells us what matters: not how many talents we have, but how diligently we use them. The one who buried his talent to protect it, is the one who is punished. At the end of our life, God will not ask me how I protected my talents, but how I used them. The biggest mistake would be not doing things for fear of making mistakes.

We all have our LIMITATIONS, too. Thus, a porter at a railway station or a tea vendor on the street cannot do philanthropy as a millionaire can. A cancer patient cannot go around and visit the sick or prisoners. A mother struggling to feed and clothe her children in spite of an alcoholic husband cannot be a daily church-goer or a travelling social worker. But they all can become saints.

I will one day be asked what I did with the gifts God “lent” me for a time. I did not pay for them. I did not deserve them. They were given to me free, to be shared freely. Do I?

Spirituality is the most practical thing in life. We know—and those who live with us know even better—whether we are loving or selfish, gossips or community-builders, harsh or kind, generous or tight-fisted, honest or corrupt.

As for wisdom, we will do well to learn from people who are sensible, to consult wiser people before taking important decisions, and not to take decisions when we are under the sway of intense emotions (like anger, sadness, jealousy or sexual passion).

Danger for Religious

Being responsible for my life is a duty I cannot hand over to someone else. For those of us who belong to religious orders, there is a real danger that we may reduce spirituality to practices of piety, and look at our superiors or religious order as being responsible for us. They cannot be. I can be a saint or a crook while staying in the Salesian Congregation. I can come out of a Eucharist as a compassionate and Christ-like person or a selfish or destructive individual.

For living a loving, wise and responsible life, we need clarity of vision and inner strength. For this, religious practices are a great help. Prayer can help me to forgive. Lent can increase my discipline. A meaningful Eucharist can lead me to see everyone as the Body of Christ. A good confession can help me to admit my faults honestly and want to change. A retreat or heart-felt Bible-reading can focus my attention on God’s plans.

All these are helps, not automatic switches that can “turn on” spirituality. No setting or practice, no group-belonging or longevity makes anyone spiritual. The monks of old knew this. Hence this saying in the monasteries: “It is easier to take the monk from the world than the world from the monk.” It is easier for a religious (or priest) to leave home and join a new setting (seminary or religious house) than to root out worldliness from our heart.

The spiritual life for a Christian supposes a set of priorities based on Christ’s life and teachings, and a serious attempt to move from self-centredness to love. The three temptations that Jesus faced are our constant temptations too: the pull of power, pleasure and possessions. This struggle never gets over.

But if we are truly after what matters, we will experience a peace, joy and inner strength which power, pleasure and possessions cannot give us. That joy and serenity mark the saints of all traditions. Spirituality in this sense is nothing mysterious. It cannot be described or measured directly, but its overflow onto the whole person is evident.

Pope John XXIII, for instance, was known as the GOOD Pope John. His warmth and simplicity touched the hearts of people. Francis of Assisi had a sensational impact on people. They would run to get a glimpse of him. St. Bakhita, the African slave who became a nun, promised the people of the Italian town where she lived (Schio) that no bomb would fall there—a promise that was kept. A simple, serene and transparent life, coupled with a compassionate outreach to others, seems to the most persistent trait of a genuine spiritual life.

There is a luminosity about truly good people, which is indicated by the halo painted around saints. May you and I be marked by a luminous aura of goodness.

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Instead of presenting one or two book reviews, as we normally do, we present six books on healing from the effects of sexual abuse. We have in mind especially superiors, formators, counsellors and spiritual directors—persons who are in a privileged position to help survivors of sexual abuse. Healing is possible, but victims and survivors need help. Since the prevalence of sexual abuse in India is high, all of us (parents, priests, religious and counsellors) would do well to learn more about helping victims and survivors. (Editor)

1. Wendy Maltz. Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse (Third Edition). William Morrow Paperbacks, 2012. (Indian Price: Rs 799.00). Its three parts deal with: (1) Becoming aware; (2) Making the Changes; (3) Creating Positive Experiences.
2. Dan Allender. The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse. 2008 (Rs 816.00). Writes with knowledge of Church settings.
3. Ellen Bass & Laura Davis. Beginning to Heal: A First Book for Men and Women Who Were Sexually Abused as Children. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2003. ($7.98). A simple book for those who are beginning the process of healing.
4. Beverly Engel. The Right to Innocence: Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Therapeutic 7-Step Self-Help Program for Men and Women, Including How to Choose a Therapist and Find a Support Group. Ivy Books, 1990. (Rs 896.90). Another simple, short and introductory book written in non-technical language.
5. Karen A. Duncan. Healing from the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Journey for Women. Praeger, 2004 ($19.95). The author, a family therapist, presents the true stories of eighteen women survivors, and how healing occurs in stages.
6. William Lee Carter. It Happened to Me: A Teen’s Guide to Overcoming Sexual Abuse (workbook). New Harbinger Publications, 2002. ($22.93). A simple book written for teenagers and those who work with them.

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A married man shares with us how he found peace and strength as his sister and his wife faced cancer, and when his daughter’s marriage is on the rocks.

Life lessons can be learned in a variety of ways. Sometimes they come from the wisdom of an older family member, teacher or priest. Sometimes they come as the consequence of having worked hard to achieve success, and the struggle was rewarded. At other times, we learn life lessons through our hardships and sorrows.  I recently received a text from one of my younger sisters who just last year underwent treatment for an aggressive cancer. She informed me that in her follow-up visit to the doctor, he had discovered a new mass on one of her internal organs. Her note, which seemed unusually peaceful under the circumstances, asked for prayers and expressed concern not for her own health but for how the news might impact her husband and their three daughters. Fighting through my own tears, I offered her my prayers and began to struggle with how I could possibly help her deal with the potentially tragic news. Words like “never lose hope”, “it’s going to be OK” or even “we will keep you in our prayers” seemed so inadequate.

The next day, as I offered prayers and my daily Mass intention for her, I continued to reflect on what counsel an older brother might give in such a time of doubt, fear and suffering.  I am deeply grateful that the Holy Spirit quickly gave me an answer. In prayer after Holy Communion I found myself reminded of some advice I myself had received several years ago from a Catholic priest in Ireland where I was scheduled to deliver a talk to a large group.  Crystal was supposed to have been giving the talk with me but had needed to stay home to maintain a vigil over her gravely ill mother, a woman I too loved with all my heart.  It was just before I was scheduled to speak that the priest, who was aware of my suffering, approached me and offered to pray with me. With great confidence, he encouraged me to “live in the present moment.” He encouraged me to trust that I was where God wanted me to be at that moment and that by focusing on being there in that parish church I would be deeply blessed. As I listened intently to his words I could feel the anguish leave me as if my heart had finally just left Chicago and arrived back to me in that little Irish town.  I made it through the whole presentation with my voice cracking only slightly as I had to explain Crystal’s absence. But beyond just getting through it, I also noticed an overwhelming sense of the goodness of what God was doing in the Apostolate I was speaking about and was overcome with an appreciation of the beauty of those gathered that day to be drawn closer to Christ.

A Most Valuable Lesson

The lesson that I learned that day has truly been one of the most valuable of my life. The notion of living in the present moment is a powerful one and a blessed one. That day I began to realize that by being present to where I find myself at any given time, I can let go of the pain and suffering of something that has happened in the past as well as be relieved of the fear and doubt for the future. The call to live in the present moment allows me to focus more clearly on and appreciate the blessings that I have, to see God’s abundant love for me every minute of my day!

As I continued to ponder my sister’s struggle, I also recalled a conversation that I had recently with a friend whose wife was battling cancer. I had related to him that, as strange as it sounded, walking with Crystal through her bout with cancer was one of the most blessed times of my life. I almost felt guilty saying that, but it was true. It was during that time that I came to appreciate the gift of each day. While Crystal’s prognosis is good, it was a wake up call to remember the precious gift of each day we have together.

A Transforming Moment

The discovery of the power and grace of living in the present moment doesn’t mean we will be free from pain, suffering or fear.   There will always be times when we are painfully aware of the myriad hardships of life, whether our own or someone else’s.  However, as the skills of “living in the present” strengthen, hardship can offer transformative insights. As an example, I recall a time during Crystal’s cancer battle when we sat together in the hospital treatment room. Crystal was reading a book, her head covered with a scarf over her because of her lack of hair caused by the toxic chemicals dripping into her bloodstream.  As I gazed upon her I could not help but be drawn into the pain and suffering she had been going through in struggling with her disease and the uncertainty it created for our future.  It was at the very moment that the sympathetic tears began to well up in me that Crystal looked up from her book and gave me one of her cute little smiles.  Immediately my thoughts were drawn to her special beauty and tender heart. For the rest of our time in that room my heart was filled with awe and wonder at how well she was handling things. For the first time I finally understood what the words grace and dignity were all about. In the presence of this magnificent image of a suffering servant my heart was drawn ever closer to her. I will always cherish that moment as I will always cherish her.

The practical person in me would caution that one shouldn’t put too much stock in living in the present moment lest one forget the lessons of past suffering or not adequately prepare for what is to come. However, the recent arrival of our daughter and her three young children into our home as a result of a pending divorce has reminded me of Christ’s own admonition in Matthew 18:3 “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I see these blessed little grandchildren in their near constant joy of having an on-going sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Sure, they are innocent and don’t comprehend the pain and suffering of a broken family, yet their ability to see only the joy of their time with us doesn’t seem like it would give them enough time to be sad.  Likewise, the unabashed joy of a little eighteen-month-old toddler racing toward me with an ear-to-ear smile doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of time to worry about the future either. So, at this present moment, I will close with a request of prayers for my precious sister, our daughter and grandchildren. I promise to pray that each of you will be open to all of the love God has for you this day.

“Do not fear what may happen tomorrow. The same loving Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and everyday. Either he will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.” (St. Francis de Sales)

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Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! And behold, you were within me and I was outside… You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all.

You called, and cried out to me and broke open my deafness; you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness: You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I now pant for you: I tasted and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for Your peace.

(Confessions, Bk. 10,27)

There is hardly a text in spiritual literature as eloquent as this to describe an experience of conversion.  It resonates with our longing to move away from a fragmented existence towards an authentic fulfillment within the Divine.  St. Teresa of Avila expressed it well when she said of the Confessions, “I saw myself described there.”

Augustine (354-430 AD), born in Tagaste (Souk-Ahras) in modern day Algeria close to the border with Tunisia, has had an enormous impact on theology as well as spirituality.  The son of Patricius, a middle-class Roman councilor, and Monica, a devout Christian, Augustine was a brilliant student who went to Carthage at the age of seventeen.  The reading of Cicero’s Hortensius led him to a greater search for wisdom.  He spent nine years following Manichaeism but was disenchanted when Faustus, a Manichee bishop, could not respond to his doctrinal difficulties and dilemmas related to natural science.  He applied for and was appointed the Public Orator of Milan and this put him in touch with Bishop Ambrose.  At first Augustine was drawn to him because of his eloquence, but later on would learn to appreciate the Old Testament, understand the unity of the will (self-indulgent will and the will directed to good) and experience an overall integration within his life.  The moment of conversion would take place in a garden during the month of August, 386, while reading Romans 13:13.  Along with some of his disciples, he asked for baptism.  They returned to Tagaste and began living a monastic life.  He was ordained by Bishop Valerius of Hippo, succeeded him after his death and remained the bishop of Hippo for forty years.

The focus on Augustine has often been on his phenomenal contribution to theology.  However, Augustine also stands out as one of the great spiritual writers in history, with the Confessions becoming a genre or style emulated by others in order to describe their spiritual experience.  Two aspects stand out in the spirituality of Augustine: a) conversion and b) community life.  For him, conversion was a movement from a fragmented image to a re-formation of the image of God (the Trinity) within a person through the gifts of faith and love.  His philosophical formation led him to move from the senses to the interior dimension of his life.  However, it was by contemplating Scripture that he experienced the reconciling and transforming power of Christ leading to a growing union with God.  He explained this  process is explained as consisting in seven steps through which a person moves from the sensory level to a serene contemplation of the Truth.

Augustine’s conversion was an ongoing process. Many years later, as priest and Bishop, he still experienced the need to be reconciled and renewed by God (Confessions, Book 10).  This experience would be institutionalized through the Rule of Augustine, where a structure is offered to build a community of friendship, joyful hope and Christian charity.

Augustine’s search for the Divine finds many parallels among the sages within the Indian sub-continent.  His life, as well as his spiritual insights, continues to inspire and guide authentic seekers as they struggle with their own conversion process.

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Keep Watch is a Letter from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life released on 8 September 2014. It was released during the Year of Consecrated life (30 November 2014 to 2 February 2016). Basically, it speaks about Consecrated Life as a Journey, a journey like the Exodus, trying to search for the face of God and move beyond passing concerns. Here are the major points of the document.

A. Consecrated Life as Exodus

The journey of the Israelites was a journey with God through the symbols of a cloud by day and a flame by night. “At every stage of their journey, whenever the cloud rose from the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would resume their march. If the cloud did not rise, they waited and would not march until it did. For the cloud of the LORD rested on the tabernacle by day, and a fire shone within the cloud by night, for all the House of Israel to see. And so it was for every stage of their journey (Ex 40:36-38).”  This evocative icon of Exodus indicates a modern image of Consecrated Life. It includes our modern moments of stop and go, pause and resume, patience and enterprise.

Exodus is full of symbols and metaphors: The burning bush, crossing the red sea, journey through the desert, the theophany on mount Sinai, fear of the lonely wilderness, the gift of the law of the covenant, the column of cloud and fire, manna, water. The symbol of the desert signifies arid solitude and loneliness, lack of basics of life (water, vegetation, friends, life).

The Symbol of the Cloud (anan): It is a guide for the journey, at times stopping for long time, thus causing inconvenience and provoking complaint, then, rising and moving to show the way. The cloud indicated constant watchfulness, test of faith, patience, and final destination indefinitely postponed, leading to total obedience.  The symbolic meaning of the cloud is interpreted as the angel of God (Ex14:19), presence of God, used again and again in psalms and wisdom books, and even in the New Testament (cloud during the birth of Jesus, the Transfiguration, the Ascension).

Consecrated Life Today: It is a kind of journey guided by the cloud in the Post-Conciliar era. It is a journey of exodus. There have been moments of creative fidelity, inventiveness, enthusiasm; so too fragile certainties and bitter disappointments, like walking in darkness at times and watchful prayer. Consecrated life is an unknown voyage (Wisdom18:3), a journey that demands total obedience, trust and faith. It is like the journey of Abraham, who was asked to move to an unknown destination.

B. Living the Exodus

Consecrated Life has evolved into the present form through a journey like Exodus. This evolution can be seen during the second half of the last century:

• 1947: Introducing Secular Institutes was a revolutionary gesture in the Church.
• 1950: The Vatican called the first World Congress of all Religious.
• 1964: Lumen Gentium, 6^th Chapter (on religious life) brings an ecclesial identity to Religious Life.
• 1965: Perfectae Caritatis. Decree giving importance to fraternal life and formation (educational formation of religious).
• Pacem in Terris introduces new concept (“signs of the times”), rights and duties, human dignity and even UN Universal Declaration of the Human Rights. Consecrated life has tried to meet these demands, inviting religious to the image of the cloud with trust and obedience through the voice of the Church.
• The theology of Charism begins with Vatican II though not mentioned in Vatican II.
• 1971: The word charism first appears in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelica Testificatio of Paul VI.
• The Church guided the Consecrated Life in the last fifty years on these seven main themes:
• The foundational charism,
• life in the spirit nourished by the Word (lectio divina),
• fraternal life in common,
• initial and continuing formation,
• new forms of apostolate,
• the exercise of authority and
• attention to different cultures.

 C. Consecrated Life as Elijah’s Life

The monastic life is compared to the life of Prophet Elijah: Solitude, asceticism, passion for the covenant, fidelity to the law, defence of poor and passing the mantle as prophetic sign (6). Elijah defends the poor in condemning Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Encountering the poor widow, fighting for her life, depression in the desert at Beersheba and surviving on bread and water, prophetic defence against Baal–these are the other life events that can be compared to Consecrated Life today. He goes through purification and reaches enlightenment finally at Mount Horeb.  In the experience of dark nights, he experiences the theophany of God in the gentle breeze.  God is a whisper, not visible but present. Elijah’s begging for rain in a crouching position and taking refuge in a cave in crouching position indicate the image of an unborn baby.  Thus, he gives rebirth to the new paths of the living God.

Religious men and women should not lose sight of the movement of the cloud. We should try to recognise God in small and frail signs. We might hear an echo of Elijah’s servant, who repeats, searching the horizon: There is nothing! (1 Kgs 18:43). We are called to the grace of patience, to wait and return to searching the sky even seven times (12).

D. Centrality of the Gospel in Religious Life

Religious Life is following the Gospel (8).  “St. Dominic showed himself everywhere as an evangelical man in words and deeds.”  For Francis of Assisi, the Rule is: “The life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ;” For Clare of Assisi: “The form of life of the order of four sisters… is this: ‘To observe the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’” In the rule of the Carmelites, the fundamental precept is that of “meditating on the Law of the Lord day and night.” James Alberione affirmed that the Pauline Family: “Aspires to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the full.”   Little Sister Magdeleine has said: “We must build something new; something new that is old, that is the authentic Christianity of the first disciples of Jesus. We have to take up the Gospel word for word.”  Every charism of consecrated life is rooted in the Gospel.

Conclusion

We are called to move along these paths, opposing the dia-bolical that divides and separates, and liberating the sym-bolical, meaning the primacy of the bond and relationship present in the complexity of created reality (15).

The heart of that bond is God, revealed in Jesus Christ.

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Basing herself on her experience of abuse and the healing she experienced after becoming a Catholic, journalist and Jewish convert Dawn Eden wrote a book for survivors of sexual abuse.

Dawn Eden is a Jewish convert to Catholicism. In her book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints,  she explains how faith helped her to get healed of the sexual abuse she suffered in childhood. Now she wants to bring the same healing to others, especially to prisoners.

A striking aspect of her book is that she was effectively helped by the lives of saints, like Maria Goretti and the saintly Latin American young woman, Laura Vicuňa. In Laura’s case, the abuse was at the hands of her mother’s lover. Laura prayed for the conversion of her mother as well.

Dawn Eden makes this dramatic statement, “When I received the grace of faith in Christ at the age of 31, I was instantly healed of the depression and temptations to suicide that had dogged me since my teens and which I later learned were the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the abuse. But … I still had other effects to contend with, including anxiety, flashbacks, and hyper-sensitivity. And my thought as a new Christian was that … I didn’t have enough faith. So I blamed myself.”

Five years later, at age 37, Dawn became a Catholic. She shares two experiences that helped her to get more fully healed.

The first was an Ignatian retreat. It helped her to see her wounds in the light of Christ’s wounds. She realized that, if she united her wounded heart to the wounded and glorified heart of Jesus, then her wounds become channels of Christ’s light for her.

Dawn was deeply helped by this realization. She had thought that her wounds separated her from Christ. Now she saw that she could meet Christ more deeply precisely through her wounds. She experienced the power of Christ, the great healer.

The second insight came to her when she read the story of Laura Vicuňa—the girl abused by her mother’s lover. “And this was very similar to my own experiences as a child. After my mother’s divorce, I was raised by my mother; I was made to live in what was truly a sexually porous environment where I was not protected from adult nudity, from pornography, from graphic sex talk, and where I too was molested by one of my mother’s boyfriends.”

Dawn was struck that Laura, in addition to forgiving her abuser, forgave her mother, who had cooperated in the abuse. In fact, she actually offered her life for her mother’s conversion.

“When I read that, I broke down crying because I realized how relevant it was for me, as I was still needing to forgive my mother for not protecting me. Then I thought if Laura’s story was so healing for me, imagine how it would be for others…Bl. Laura’s story was really modern, and that was the direct inspiration for my wanting to write a book on healing from childhood sexual abuse through the lives of saints who have suffered such abuse.”

Eden was helped in another way by the lives of such saints. She knows that the victim feels ashamed and often blames herself, or is afraid of moving away from the abusive parent or guardian. When she sees that the abused child went on to become a saint, she finds new hope. She realizes: “I was not the one responsible for the abuse. It could not have been my sin.”

Dawn hopes that her book will help not only victims of sexual abuse, but also pastors who try to help victims. In her own case, she says that when she received the grace of faith, she was instantly healed of the temptation to harm herself. But there were other areas of woundedness for which she still needed help. This is where loving pastoral care can be a great support.

Eden has three suggestions on how church people can help victims:

One: to be present to them, to listen to them, and to assure them that they did no wrong. Many victims blame themselves and think of themselves as persons of no worth. They need to be affirmed.

Second: To pray for them.

Third: To help the person find a good spiritual director, as a well as therapist, preferably a Catholic.

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The article on sexual abuse in the previous issue of Magnet referred to the high prevalence rates of abuse in India and described some of its negative consequences. The article concluded with the poignant question Anita, a survivor of incest, asked after describing her pain and anguish: “I am carrying a lot of painful experiences and I want to be a completely changed person. Is it possible for me? The answer given to this question was an emphatic “Yes!”

Sexual abuse can damage not only the body but also crush the spirit. But healing and recovery is possible! Life can be good again!

The following excerpt from the letter that Anita wrote to her therapist after the conclusion of her therapy confirms this:

… I believe through you Jesus has healed me of all the pain, sadness and suffering that I was carrying for years in my life. I can feel my body is pure and chaste. I like it so much now. I feel all the dirt has gone away though there are areas still to be healed–very clearly I can see it… Now I can shed tears of joy, not of sadness, and I really did…. I will try to live a new life covered with peace and joy….

Anita was able to experience healing. She was able to experience herself as good again, and she was able to look to the future with hope and optimism.

Anita’s healing process was facilitated through therapy and the letters her therapist wrote to her. Not every survivor of sexual abuse is fortunate enough like Anita to get the help of a therapist or to have someone to accompany him or her in the recovery process. In situations where recourse to a therapist is not possible, there are a number of self-healing techniques that survivors of sexual abuse can use to heal themselves.

This article describes some of these pathways to healing.  It is addressed primarily to survivors of abuse. However, others too can benefit from it. Some of the techniques and approaches described here are useful for healing from any kind of trauma.

PATHWAYS TO HEALING

The ultimate goal of healing is to free yourself from the negative consequences of the abuse; to accept the abuse as part of your personal history and transform your self-loathing into compassion for yourself; to develop a more positive sense of yourself, enabling you to look to the future with hope and live your life in more serene and satisfying ways. This requires recalling and emotionally re-experiencing the traumatic aspects of the abuse.

This process has to unfold slowly, safely and in an emotionally manageable way; it cannot be rushed. In this process, the issues that will come up and require working through include: your distorted self-concept and thought processes, painful emotions, such as uncontrolled anger, shame, anxiety and guilt, as well as the dysfunctional behaviours that flow from them; negative attitudes toward body and sexuality; impaired relationships; and difficulties around trust and intimacy.  A number of steps you can take to heal yourself are described below.

1. Break the Silence and Secrecy

Survivors of sexual abuse are usually reluctant to disclose the abuse to anyone, fearing that it could be hurtful to self or to others to talk about their traumatic experience. This may be true of you too. You might have kept your abuse experience secret, unwilling to disclose it to anyone for a variety of reasons.

You might be fearful as to what might happen if others come to know your abuse experience. You might fear that others may not believe your story and instead might blame you. You might also have been threatened by your abuser with dire consequences in case you disclose the abuse.

The shame you associate with the abuse can also prevent you from disclosure. Even though the abuse was something that was forced upon you, still you might feel guilty, falsely believing you were somehow responsible for what happened.

Moreover, your abuse experience is something that you might have tried hard to forget or even denied, and retelling it can be very painful.

If you are reluctant to disclose your abuse experience, you are not alone. One large study of women sexual abuse survivors showed that 23.6 percent of them had never discussed the abuse with another person. These women had kept their experience of sexual abuse secret for an average of 54.3 years! For those who had discussed the abuse, an average of 24.7 years had elapsed between the onset of the abuse and their first disclosure.

Disclosure of abuse is especially difficult for men survivors. Raphael’s case is a good example. Raphael was fifteen years old when he was sexually abused by a man. Raphael felt so ashamed of the incident that he kept it as a dark secret until he was fifty-two, never ever speaking about it to anyone. It was in group therapy that he gained the courage to unburden himself. Disclosures of sexual abuse by a couple of other participants and the response of the therapist and of the rest of the group to those disclosures gave Raphael courage to open up. It took him thirty-seven years to disclose the incident. That disclosure brought him so much relief and comfort: “A huge load has been lifted from me today. Just sharing my secret has brought me the healing I needed. I can now leave behind the shame and the burden I carried for so many years, and move on.”

In his book The Body Keeps the Score (2014), world famous trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk observes: “Finding words where words were absent before and, as a result, being able to share your deepest pain and deepest feelings with another human being—this is one of the most profound experiences we can have, and such resonance, in which hitherto unspoken words can be discovered, uttered, and received, is fundamental to healing the isolation of trauma—especially if other people in our lives have ignored or silenced us. Communicating fully is the opposite of being traumatized.”

If you have been abused and have kept your abuse a dark secret and are burdened by it, you may want to leave the burden behind by disclosing the abuse to someone you trust. Ideal would be for you to work with a counsellor or spiritual director. You need to share only what you feel comfortable sharing and only to the extent you find comfortable sharing. If a counsellor or spiritual director is not available, you may confide in a trustworthy friend or elder.

A caution is due here. Disclosures of abuse do not always lead to happy consequences. You need to find someone who will respond empathically; otherwise you may be re-traumatised.  This is especially true when disclosure leads to court cases. While some survivors find healing in the arrest and sentencing of the perpetrator, in many cases the legal procedure in itself can be more traumatising than the original abuse.

2. Stop Blaming Yourself

Guilt is a common experience following abuse. Even though you were helpless before the abuser—after all, you were a child then—and the abuse was something inflicted on you against your will, still you might blame yourself for what happened and feel guilty. This happens especially because you might have experienced some pleasure and then concluded you might have wanted it. You need to know that the pleasure was involuntary. It was a natural consequence of your very sensitive sexual organs and sexual areas being stimulated. You were not responsible for it. You may have to say to yourself again and again that you were not responsible for the abuse and place the blame squarely where it belongs, on the abuser. It is the adult who is guilty, not the child. Someone on whom you were dependent or whose domination you were too weak to resist took advantage of your dependency and vulnerability. You need to hold him or her responsible and stop blaming yourself.

3. Know You Are Not Alone

Often a sexual abuse survivor thinks that she or he is the only one who has had such an unfortunate experience. If you think this way, you can feel very isolated. The reality is that you are not alone. Research and clinical experience show that sexual abuse is the experience of many children, as well as quite a few women, as the article in the previous issue showed.

However, while abuse is the experience of many, your experience is unique to you. No one else would have had exactly the same experience. Everyone’s experience is different. However, you are not alone; many have had similar experience like you.

4. Believe Healing is Possible

All the negativity that follows your victimisation might make you believe that your life now is useless, that you are condemned to remain a victim and suffer shame and distress all through life, that life will never be normal for you, that healing of your pain and distress is not possible. You may believe that, as one survivor described it, “It’s only going to be downhill.” Such negative and defeatist thinking is part of the cognitive distortions that follow victimisation.

Yet, healing is possible; life can be good again. But you have to work at it; working at it requires effort.

Many survivors have been able to work through the effects of their trauma and are able to lead normal and productive lives. You too can. You need to believe it first and then do your part in order to experience the healing.

5. Don’t Quit!

Healing from the effects of abuse takes time and involves pain. Sharing your story, breaking the silence and the secrecy, in itself can bring about some healing, but deeper healing involves effort, time and also pain. This is especially true in the early stages of your recovery. Normally the symptoms get worse, that is, you will experience them more acutely, in the early stages of the healing work before getting better.

This can lead to discouragement. That is what happened to Daisy, who was in therapy to deal with her sexual abuse experience. She found the working through too painful and decided to quit. It was only the patient encouragement and reassurance by her therapist that brought her back. Ultimately she was glad she decided to stay with the recovery process. It did heal her.

You too may begin to feel, after you have begun working at your recovery that it is not worth going through the pain involved and may want to stop. This would be a mistake. It is important not to quit the healing work because of the initial distress you might experience.

6. Educate Yourself on the Nature of Abuse and its Effects

It is helpful for you to be informed about sexual abuse and its effects. You can read about the nature of abuse, its consequences, particularly the traumatic symptoms, such as flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation, numbing, intense emotional reactions and hyper-vigilance. There are also books written by abuse survivors sharing both their victimisation and their healing experiences. These can provide you with useful insights and means for healing yourself. Today much useful information is available in books and on the Internet.

It is also useful for you to attend seminars and workshops on sexual abuse and healing.

7. Express Your Feelings

Sexual victimisation evokes a number of painful emotions, especially anger, grief, fear, guilt and shame. Because these are painful and difficult to live with, you might expend lots of energy in trying to suppress them. However, your healing process is facilitated when you allow yourself to acknowledge these feelings, allow yourself to experience them and express them in helpful ways. This way you reduce their toxic impact.

There are a number of techniques that are useful not only for facilitating the expression of feelings but also for bringing about healing in other ways as well. Among these techniques, two that you can do on your own are Expressive Writing and Expressive Drawing.

Expressive writing is a very easy yet effective technique. It consists in focusing on your abuse experience for a while and then writing freely whatever comes to mind (Pennebaker, 1990). It is important not to censor any thought, feeling, memory or desire but give free expression in writing to anything you experience. Such writing heals by bringing about changes in the traumatic memory tracks in your brain.

You need to set aside about fifteen minutes daily for about two weeks for this exercise. Focus on the abuse experience for about 7-8 minutes and then, for another 7-8 minutes, write freely whatever comes to mind. You can throw away or burn what you have written. The healing is in the writing itself.

It is important to note here that, although such writing may look simple, yet it is not always very easy to do.  Focusing on the abuse and writing about it can bring up some very powerful distressing emotions. However, if you are able to endure this distress and complete the process, it is most likely you will experience considerable healing.

Anthony, a 28-year old seminarian, was first abused when he was a four- or five-year-old by a cousin. The cousin passed Anthony on to a friend of his who also abused him, for about four years. And the abuse continued… by different people, even after he entered a seminary. All the abusers were men, some of whom persons he had gone to in desperation for spiritual or psychological help. The continued abuse distressed him so much that he even attempted suicide. Anthony described the effect on him of doing the Expressive Writing exercise suggested to him (see box).

When I was first asked to write about my story, I laughed inside and said, “What a big deal!” But a thought came: Someone is interested in my story. Someone is ready to help me, so let me give it a try. But, when I began to write, all hell broke out! And I wrote… and wrote… I wrote 20 pages about my life that was shattered and marred by sexual abuse by a series of men over a 25-year period. It took me three weeks to write those 20 pages. When I first began to write, I could write just five lines. My eyes swelled up with tears.  I just sat there crying, my being all shattered. Sat to write again the next day, but I couldn’t write a word, I just sat there…, and again the next day, no words came, just sitting there crying and feeling shattered. On the fourth day I was able to begin the sixth line, and the tape of my life began to unwind, and incident after incident of my abuse flashed on my mind as on a movie screen. It took me two days just to settle down after the emotional turmoil that the writing caused. There was so much shame, so much fear and anxiety, so much anger as I wrote. But I was determined to write on, I wanted healing so much. And as the days went by, writing became easier, the disturbance subsided, I began to feel calm, hope surged in my soul. When I began to write again, I experienced great calm and peace. I don’t know where that came from and how that happened. I just felt it. There was so much relief. Life was good again.

Expressive Drawing is another simple yet useful technique. As in the case of expressive writing, focus on your traumatic experience for a while and then use crayons to draw whatever you feel like. A five-step technique can then be used to process the drawing. These steps are: (1) See Clearly; (2) Free-Associate; (3) Feel the Emotional Impact; (4) Discern the Message/Invitation; and (5) Give a Caption.

After you have completed the drawing, you have to look carefully to see all that there is in your drawing. Many images in the drawing will come into focus only when you take time to contemplate the drawing. In the case of one survivor who did this exercise, what she at first thought was an airplane became a sexual organ when she took time to look at her drawing more carefully. And that image opened up a whole gamut of emotions in her.

In the free association stage, you allow the various images, shapes and colours in the drawing to trigger in you any associations in terms of memories, thoughts, feelings, longings, fantasies and so on.

In the emotional impact stage, you get in touch with the mood and feelings the drawing and the associations to it evoke in you. For example, the mood it creates in you could be one of sadness, anger, confusion, joy or excitement and so on.

In the discerning stage, you try to listen to and discover what the drawing is telling you.

Finally, you give the drawing a caption—a word or short phrase that captures what that drawing means to you or represents for you.

One woman who fought back to avoid being raped, at first could only stare at the crayons and the paper. She then grasped a bunch of red crayons and kept circling around forcefully digging into the paper. When she stopped, there was just a heavy blotch of red on the paper. When asked what she saw, she said: “blood on boil.” When asked what emotions were arising, she said: “Rage, rage, rage!”

Such expressive drawing and contemplation of it can help you tell your story in pictures when speaking or writing about it is difficult. More than this, drawing like this and processing it a number of times through the methodology described above will gradually loosen the grip of the trauma, reduce distress and bring about healing.

Free body movements, such as dancing freely to music after focusing on the abuse experience for a while, also help to loosen and free the somatic memories of the trauma embedded in the muscles and tissues of your body.

What is important in all these techniques is that you give yourself permission to feel what you need to feel and give expression to the feelings freely.

8. Learn to Calm Yourself

As you begin to narrate the horrendous experiences, or start doing the exercises described above, you may have painful flashbacks and can re-experience the distress—nausea, fear, shame, etc.—that you had experienced during the victimization, and begin to be overwhelmed. If that happens, you can stop the exercises or narrative for a while, calm yourself down and do them again later when you feel some level of control.

There are a number of simple techniques you can use to calm down and stay present. Learning to breathe calmly and stay in relative physical relaxation helps. You can take a few slow, deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling very slowly (exhalation should be longer than inhalation) through the mouth. As you do so, focus on what is happening to the breath and in the body.

Another simple exercise is grounding. If you are sitting, place both your feet flat firmly on the ground and feel the ground beneath your feet. Feeling your feet touching the floor and focusing on that for a while can make you feel more grounded and in the present.

You can do the same exercise standing. You can give further depth to the grounding by imagining yourself to be a tree standing firm on the earth. Feel its roots doing down from your feet.

9. Pay Attention to Your Body Sensations

You can also focus on the body sensations you are experiencing, such as pressure, heat, cold, muscular tension, tingling, feeling hollow and so on. With focused attention to body sensations, you can recognise the ebb and flow of your emotions, and with that gain increased control over them (van der Kolk, 2014).

Focusing on body sensations is something that you can do even when you are not overwhelmed and can in itself be a healing exercise. Once you become aware of your body sensations, the next step is to label them. E.g. “When I feel anxious, I feel a crushing sensation in my chest. Or I feel a chocking sensation in my throat.” Focus on that sensation for a while and notice how it changes into something else when you do that.

Focusing on the body can be done with the mind, but also by touch—placing the palm at the location, or tapping the area with the fingers or palm. As you focus on a particular sensation, it might change into some other sensation, or may move to a new location in the body. Focus on the new sensation wherever it is felt and continue to focus on various sensations for a while until you experience some pleasant sensations, such as warmth, tinkling, flow of energy and so on, and a sense of calmness/wellbeing emerges.

10. Take Care of Yourself

Sexual victimisation can affect your body, mind and spirit. You may develop a very negative attitude especially toward your body. You may feel your body is dirty and no good. You may even believe that you were targeted by the abuser because you had an attractive body. Consequently, you may try to make yourself as unattractive as possible to ward off any future attack. You might neglect grooming, hygiene and exercise. You might dress carelessly. You might over-eat or under-eat to make yourself look fat or thin, and that way less attractive to others.

In this context, it is very important that you not only try to get rid of your distorted thinking about your body but also engage in self-nurturing and self-caring activities. You have to learn again to take care of your appearance, hygiene and health and to participate in social and recreational activities. Give yourself permission to have fun and enjoy life.

You need to develop some compassion for your body that has suffered so much. You need to pamper your body a little to make it feel good. Eat healthy and nourishing food. Wear comfortable clothes, especially inner wear. This is one way of soothing areas of the body that might have been violated or hurt.

11. Confront Your Abuser

It is sometimes helpful to confront your abuser. Tell him or her whatever you feel like telling them, such as how you feel about what happened, how it has impacted you, how you now feel toward them and so on.

You can do this directly in person. If you plan to confront in person, it is good to have with you someone you trust and with whom you have shared your story to provide you support. You can also do this through a letter or a phone call.

You should do this confrontation only after you have done some working through of your trauma and feel less overwhelmed by it. Otherwise the confrontation itself might turn out to be very distressing for you. You also need to consider how safe it is for you to confront your abuser. It is important that you do not expose yourself to further victimisation and trauma.

When done effectively and safely, such confrontation helps you not only to vent your feelings but also helps you regain the control that the abuse had taken away from you.

12. Spiritual Approaches

It is also important to note here that this article has only described psychological pathways of healing. However, psychological work is only one aspect of healing the whole person. There are other pathways to healing, especially spiritual approaches, such as prayer, retreats and the sacraments. It is very helpful for you to make use of these to facilitate and enhance your healing from the effects of sexual abuse. Spiritual practices can be deep and powerful. They need to be rightly understood and practiced. When genuine, whole-hearted and exercised in healthy ways, they can be the most healing experience of all.

Useful books

Bass, E., & Davis. L. (1994). The courage to heal: A guide for women survivors of child sexual abuse. New York: Harper Perennial.

Gil, E. (1988). Outgrowing the pain: A book for and about adults abused as children. New York: Dell Publishing.

Halprin, D. (2003). The expressive body in life, art and therapy: working with movement, metaphor and meaning. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Pennebaker, J. W. (1990). Opening up: The healing power of expressing emotions. New York: Guilford.

van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma. London: Penguin.

For reflection

• What are the significant learnings or insights you have gained from this article?
• If you are a survivor of abuse, which of the approaches suggested here have you tried? What was the result?
• Which of the other approaches described here do you think might be good for you to try?

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We present below the results of a simple questionnaire distributed to young women religious and novices. The very first item they had to fill in was: “The person who inspires me most.”

Who do you think inspires our young religious and novices most? Who are their greatest heroes and heroines?

Try guessing. Then, have a look at what the young sisters and novices actually wrote.

By far the commonest answer was….MY MOTHER.

Out of thirty-one respondents, seven said they were most inspired by their mothers. Another four mentioned both parents. If we add these four to the seven, then, Mother gets 11 votes out of 31.

Father gets a distant second place! Four places under “parents” and one who mentioned Father.

Three sisters or novices mentioned Jesus as their main source of inspiration.

Two mentioned Brother. Another two mentioned Mother Teresa.

One each mentioned the following persons as their main source of inspiration: Mother Mary, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Alphonsa, Grand-mother, Uncle, Aunty, Teacher, Sisters and Priests in general, Sisters who worked for the poor and visited their homes, President Abdul Kalam, a Friend.

Particular sisters or priests were mentioned by seven respondents—each one recalling a specific person they admire.

These findings are not surprising.

When Friends Magazine of Chennai conducted a survey among one thousand young people spread over ten centres in India some decades ago, the results were similar. Mother came first among the persons who had the greatest influence on the young persons’ lives. Father came next.

It may look as if young people are crazy about film stars or cricketers or famous pubic figures for a while, but the persons with the deepest impact on their life are their parents, especially their mother.

Even for us, religious and priests, who go through years of well-planned and highly structured, full-time formation, the influence of our parents outweighs that of superiors and formators. I am more influenced by my mother and father than by my novice master or provincial.

To give concrete face to numbers and theories, here is a touching true story.

I asked a Sister known for being a loving and inspiring formator, “Which is the ministry in which you were happiest?”

Her reply surprised me: “Working among leprosy patients.”

“Really?” I said, “I would find that very difficult.”

“I really felt very happy doing that,” she told me, with a warm smile. “I would clean their sores, bandage their wounds and look after them.”

“How did you develop this love for leprosy patients?”

“From my mother.”

“From your mother? How? Did she volunteer to work for leprosy patients?”

“No. But, when beggars came to our house, my mother treated them so lovingly. Very often, she would ask them to sit, and serve them a meal, and talk with them.”

You will know such incidents.

Almost nothing matches the influence of mother and father. Even when children seem to ignore or reject parents’ advice (as can happen in teenage), they are watching and absorbing a lot. Later, they will say, “My mother used to do it this way,” “My father used to say this…”

If we, priests and religious, are as good as our good family members, and live our priesthood and religious life with the prayerfulness, dedication and sacrifice many of our parents bring to their marriage and parenthood, we would be wonderful religious and priests. Agree?

So, kudos to our parents—especially to our mothers!

Novices and junior sisters, you are admiring the right stars!

(I thank Sr Mariola Sequeira MSA for gathering the responses of the junior Sisters and novices..—Editor)

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Shocking Facts and Figures!

Our newspapers report almost horror stories related to sexual abuse almost every day. These reported cases are but the tip of the iceberg, because many more cases go unreported.

In clinical practice we encounter many who have been abused in childhood and carry the consequent trauma into adult life. Most of this abuse happens in the home by a family member or someone else known to the child.

• Shivani (survivors’ names in this article are changed, though all incidents reported are real) is a recently married young woman. She had been sexually abused almost every night by her brother from the age of nine until she reached puberty. She was scared to tell anyone and endured the onslaught in silence. Today she has such an aversion for sex that she tries every excuse to avoid intimacy with her husband.
• Julian was a boarder from the age of eight. The boarding director would come at night to his bed and fondle him—and threaten him with dire consequences if he told anyone. Julian’s academic performance deteriorated; he began to get into fights quite often. Finally, he was dismissed from school for indiscipline. He left broken and disillusioned, seething with anger and plagued by a sense of worthlessness. As an adult he went into depression; his marriage unraveled. It took him some thirty years before he sought counselling.
• Jessica was a nursing instructor. She would groom her brightest students toward a sexual relationship with her by initially granting them extra attention. She invited Ranjana, a young nursing student, to her room and initially encouraged mutual fondling. Ranjana enjoyed the attention from the Instructor as well as the sexual pleasure. After a while the instructor would present hardcore pornography on her laptop and encourage Ranjana to enact the same…. Today Ranjana is plagued by self-loathing, leading to thoughts of suicide.

These real life incidents point to the horrendous reality. These also show that it is not just men who abuse; women are abusers, too. It is not just girls and women who are victims; boys and men are also abused.

Research data indicate that prevalence rate of sexual abuse both of males and females in India is alarmingly high, higher than international prevalence rates.

Disturbing Facts

In her book Bitter Chocolate (published in 2000), Pinki Virani reported various studies showing a high prevalence of sexual abuse in India—close to 50 % for girls and 30 % for boys under the age of 16.

Sakshi, the Delhi-based organisation which spearheaded work on child sexual abuse in the early 1990’s, did a study of 357 school-going girl children. Of them, 63 percent admitted having been victims. Around half the abusers were from within their homes and close family circles.

RAHI, another Delhi-based NGO, did a survey specifically among non-lower-class women. Seventy-six percent of the 600 English-speaking middle-and-upper-class women who participated in the survey reported they had been sexually abused in childhood. Seventy-one percent were abused by relatives or family friends, 40% by a family member.

More recent studies show greater prevalence of abuse both among girls and boys in India than that reported by Virani. Some also report a higher prevalence rate of sexual abuse among boys than among girls.

The Study of Child Abuse India 2007 prepared by the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare of the Government of India reported:

“Out of the total [12447] child respondents, 53.22% reported having faced one or more forms of sexual abuse… Among them 52.94% were boys and 47.06% girls….. The significant finding was that contrary to the general perception, the overall percentage of boys was much higher than that of girls. In fact, 9 out of 13 States reported higher percentage of sexual abuse among boys as compared to girls, with states like Delhi reporting a figure of 65.64%.” (pp. 74-75)

A 2017 World Vision survey of more than 45,000 children in the 12-18 age group, across 26 states in India, revealed that one in every two children in India is a victim of child sexual abuse. It also showed one in four families do not come forward to report child abuse.

According to data released by The National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs in November 2017, there were 39,068 reported cases of sexual assault against girl children and women in India in 2016. Of these 16,863 (43.2%) were against girls under 17 years and 22,205 (56.8%) against women aged 18 and above. Of 19 cities with a population of more than 2 million, Delhi topped the list with 13,260 sexual assault cases against girls and women.

International studies, as reported by David Finkelhor, the leading researcher on sexual trauma in the world, have found abuse rates ranging from 7% to 36% for women and 3% to 29% for men. Most studies have found females to be abused at one-and-half times to 3 times the rate for males. The average is taken to be 30% for girls and 15% for boys. Compared to these rates, the prevalence of sexual abuse in India is much higher.

There is a great deal of secrecy around experiences of sexual abuse. In this context, the actual prevalence of sexual abuse in India could be much higher than what is reported.

Candidates to Religious Life and Priesthood

There is also anecdotal evidence that a large number of candidates now entering religious life or priesthood have been victims of sexual abuse before entering.

At recent meetings of the Conference of Catholic Psychologists concern was expressed about the prevalence of sexual abuse (prior to joining) among girls applying to join convents. A couple of speakers shared their belief—not based on systematic study, but on their impression—that more than 50% of new recruits seem to have been sexually abused before entering religious life.

Denial or Ignorance?

Recently a woman theologian was invited to make presentation on “Affective Maturity” to the students of a well-known Catholic theological seminary in India. As she began speaking about the prevalence of sexual abuse in India, one of the seminarians said with some annoyance: “Sister, this is not really our problem. So, why discuss it?” “You may be right,” the sister replied. “But it might be worthwhile to get others’ opinion too.” She then gave a piece of paper to each one present and told them to only write a “Yes” or a “No” answer to the question, “Have you ever experienced any form of sexual abuse?” After tabulating the results, she was amazed to find that about 45 per cent of them had written “Yes.” She later repeated the same exercise in another theological seminary. About 42 per cent of the seminarians there wrote “Yes.” (Please note: The question was whether they had ever been victims of sexual abuse. It does not imply that they were abused in the seminary.)

A ready conclusion that we can draw from these anecdotes as well as research data is that a large number, nearly one in two, of young men and women entering religious formation houses or seminaries today have been victims of sexual abuse before joining. 

WHAT IS SEXUAL ABUSE?

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA)

There isn’t a generally accepted definition that clearly demarcates which behaviours are considered sexual abuse and which are not. These behaviours range from a single act of nude exposure to repetitive coerced intercourse. The degree of severity is not a criterion for a behaviour to be labelled abuse. Most definitions include an element of force or coercion and age difference (generally five years) between the victim and the perpetrator. However, abuse can also happen in contexts where force or coercion is lacking.

The World Health Organisation defines child sexual abuse as “the involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared and cannot give consent, or that violates the laws or social taboos of society. Child sexual abuse is evidenced by this activity between a child and an adult or another child who by age or development is in a relationship of responsibility, trust or power, the activity being intended to gratify or satisfy the needs of the other person”

Sexual Abuse of Adults

A generally accepted definition of adult sexual abuse in research literature is the following: Any form of sexual exploitation and/or unwanted sexually-oriented contact with a person of the same or opposite sex, including hugging and kissing (with a sexual intent), genital display, genital fondling, and/or sexual intercourse (attempted and/or completed). Included here are any forms of sexual contact between two persons with unequal power status (e.g. Superior-subject, parish priest-parishioner, teacher-student, counsellor-client) even with mutual consent.

One thing to be noted in regard to adult sexual abuse is that, even when an adult man and woman engage in consensual sexual activity, if there is power differential between the two because of his or her status, position or role in society, free and full consent is deemed to be non-existent. Thus, if a principal of a school and a teacher engage in sexual intimacies through mutual consent the teacher’s consent would be seen as not free because of the power differential between the two.

The same can be said of a counsellor engaging in sexual intimacies with a client. The counsellor because of the superior power status he or she enjoys within the counselling relationship would be seen as abusing the client even if there was mutual consent.

Incest

When the sexual abuse is perpetrated by a close family member, it is termed incest. A large number of children are abused by their siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. A smaller percentage is also abused by their parents. Brother-sister incest is the more frequent form.

International prevalence studies show that incest experience is consistently more common for girls than for boys. These studies also report that the offenders against girls were disproportionately men (about 90%). Incest is more common in what is known as re-constituted families, that is, families in which remarriage occurs after divorce or death of a spouse.

A 2008 Delhi Police Report showing figures for the year till October found that “of the total of 421 rape cases recorded in the city, a shocking 377 incidents took place in the safe confines of the home.”  Of the 509 accused who were arrested, at least 497 were known to the victim.

Paedophilia

A particularly destructive form of child sex abuse is paedophilia. This is abuse perpetrated by adults whose preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement and gratification is through sexual fantasy or activity involving children (within the age range up to 11 or 12), as compared to the subject’s erotic inclination toward physically mature persons.  Hence, not every form of child sexual abuse can be considered as paedophilia.

The common profile of the paedophile shows that he or she is an immature and sick person. The typical paedophile is shy, timid, passive-dependent, lacking self-esteem, impulse-control and social skills, and is insecure. Many of them harbour deep seated anger and resentment, but have difficulty in expressing them. Many have experienced emotional and sexual abuse in childhood.

One reason they select a child for sexual gratification is the emotional congruence between the two. They have childish emotional needs and feel more comfortable relating to children than adults.

Compared to the paedophile, the child molester (who abuses children while his or her preference for sexual interaction is with adults) is most commonly a respectable, professionally successful, otherwise law-abiding person, even considered to be a paragon of virtue and beyond any suspicion and who for exactly that reason may escape detection.

Rape

The most violent form of sexual abuse is rape. Rape is the forceful vaginal or anal penetration imposed upon an unwilling victim, male or female. A person forced to be the object of fellatio (oral stimulation of the male genital) or to perform cunnilingus (oral stimulation of the female genital) is also a victim of oral rape.

Even when violence is not used, coercing an unwilling person to engage in sexual intercourse is also rape.

Some forms of non-coercive sexual intercourse are known as Statutory Rape. These are situations in which a man has sex with a girl or a woman even by mutual consent, wherein the girl or woman is deemed incapable of giving free and full consent or whose capacity for free consent is impaired. Examples include a man having sex with an under-age girl or with mentally ill persons, and a woman having to consent to sex with a prospective employer who offers a job on condition of sexual submission.

Although most often girls and women are the victims of rape, boys and men are also raped. Rape of males remains one of the most under reported crimes, because of the stigma attached to it, the ostracisation of the victim that often follows it, the embarrassment involved, as well as fear that the law enforcement authorities will not believe it.

Rape is an awfully terrorising experience. The victim is not only terrified by the violation of their self but also by the prospect of physical injury and loss of life itself. The possibility of the rapist killing the victim after the violation is a real possibility. Such terror of injury and death often makes the victim give in and get it over quickly rather than resist. Unfortunately, such coping technique is interpreted as consent and used against the survivor in court cases.

AFTEREFFECTS OF SEXUAL ABUSE: BROKEN BODY AND CRUSHED SPIRIT

Sexual abuse affects a person in profoundly negative ways. Survivors are affected physically, psychologically and spiritually.

Physically, their energy level is often low. Sleep is disturbed. Night terrors, insomnia, and fears of sleeping alone or with lights off are typical symptoms.

Survivors experience psychosomatic reactions such as headaches, colds, allergies, rashes, abdominal pain, digestive problems and, in the case of women survivors, frequent gynecological disorders and itching or pain in the vaginal area for which often physicians cannot find any organic cause. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are common among female survivors.

Damaged Self-Concept

The most pervasive and damaging effects of abuse are related to self-esteem and self-concept. Survivors are plagued by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity. They feel there is something wrong deep inside them. At a deep level they feel that the abuse happened because they are bad persons.

Survivors have a particularly hard time loving their body and taking care of it. They often consider their body as dirty and defiled – “damaged goods.” Consequently, they neglect their body-hygiene, grooming, dressing, etc. One woman survivor, who fought back and avoided an attempted rape, felt so ashamed and dirty that for years she would use the roughest washing soaps available and even a hard brush to scrub herself during bath.

Sometimes adult survivors believe they were targeted because they had an attractive body and try hard to make themselves as unattractive as possible to ward of any future unwanted attention. One way they do is by putting on weight. One particular woman survivor put on 25 kilos following her abuse.

In other cases, to overcome the inner suffering and the shame, survivors resort to alcohol and drugs and may become addicted to these substances. Some seek to numb the pain by inflicting physical pain on themselves through self-mutilation, such as cutting and burning.  One woman who had been severely abused by her brother as a girl would burn herself with a hot iron, particularly the genital and breast areas.

Emotional and Relational Problems

Survivors find it extremely difficult to relate in healthy ways to people. Their ability to trust people particularly is seriously undermined. Because of impaired trust, engaging in intimate relationships becomes especially difficult.

Emotional upheaval is frequent. Fear is a common consequence. Survivors become hyper-alert to threats and constantly scan the environment for possible danger. Their life becomes dominated by the effort to ward of danger.

Dealing with anger becomes particularly problematic. Sexual abuse can produce chronic irritability, unexpected or uncontrollable feelings of anger, and difficulties associated with the expression of anger. Because intense anger is largely an unacceptable emotion, its expression is often suppressed or misdirected. Angry feelings can become internalised as self-hatred and depression, occasionally providing a strong motive to engage in self-harm.

One of the hardest things for survivors is to confront their shame and guilt about the way they behaved during the traumatic incident. They often hold themselves responsible, even though it was something done against their will, something that was forced upon them. Many of them feel agonising shame about the actions they took to survive, including not offering enough resistance or keeping silence. The result is self-blame and self-hatred.

Distorted Sexuality

Survivors’ attitude toward sexuality gets distorted. They find it extremely difficult to have a positive attitude toward or acceptance of their sexuality. Sexual arousal gets linked to feelings of shame, disgust, pain and humiliation and they seek to avoid any sexual contact and may even be unwilling to marry for the same reason. Others become sexually promiscuous with the attitude “Anyway, I am ‘damaged goods.’ Let people use me whichever way they want!” Some victims say, “I am only fit to be a prostitute.”

Because they have been prematurely sexually stimulated, many experience hyperarousal (being very easily and frequently sexually aroused). This can lead to compulsive masturbation or to sexual promiscuity.

Helplessness, Hopelessness, Despair

Survivors can feel helpless and hopeless. One major destructive consequence of abuse is a loss of personal power and sense of control over their own lives. During the abuse they felt totally controlled by the perpetrator. The feeling that they have no control over themselves can continue into adulthood and manifests in feelings of being easily overwhelmed.

Survivors often lose meaning and purpose in life. They get tired of the distress caused by intrusive flashbacks (scenes of the abuse coming into consciousness unbidden), shame, guilt and anxiety and wish they were dead. Many consider suicide as an option and quite a few attempt it.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Some survivors go on to experience what has come to be known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) manifested especially as complex re-experiencing of the abuse in flashbacks, great difficulty in regulating their affect, and dissociation, that is, cognitive and emotional distancing from the original experience and a defensive disruption in the normally occurring connections among feelings, thoughts, behaviours, and memories, popularly termed “splitting off,” de-personalisation (sense of total loss of self, detachment from sense of self) and a combination of numbing (shutting down feelings) and hyper-alertness (being wary of people and surroundings and extreme alertness to the possibility of  danger).

Re-Victimization

Survivors often face serious risk of being raped or victimised again. Reasons for re-victimisation, according to John Briere, an expert on sexual abuse trauma, include: (a) survivors’ low self-esteem may lead them to assume that abusive individuals are all that they deserve; (b) the learned helplessness and powerlessness arising from sexual abuse may lead to survivors becoming passive in the face of impending victimisation; (c) abusive men may learn to identify women who have been previously abused and thus are seen as easy prey; and (d) the frequently impaired self-functions of the severely abused survivor may result in a decreased ability to detect impending boundary violations or to reject the persuasiveness of the sexual victimiser.

A major reason of re-victimisation, according to Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the leading experts on trauma, is the survivor’s inability to sense what is going on in their bodies which leads to a lack of self-protection. The normal mechanisms that warn people of danger is shut down in the survivor. Consequently, they often walk into danger rather than move away from it.

Damage to Spirituality

Especially in the case of religious women survivors, sexual abuse has a profound negative impact on their spirituality. Sexual victimisation affects survivors’ relationship with God, prayer and sacramental life in significantly negative ways.  Women, both religious and lay, abused by a male, particularly by a father or father-figure, find it difficult to relate to God who is often represented as Father.

A question many survivors ask is: “How could God allow this to happen to me?” Another is: “Where was God?” Faith and trust are often replaced by anger toward God, who is thought to have permitted the victimisation. Their strong sense of guilt also leads them to doubt God’s forgiveness. “Will God forgive me?” is a question heard from many survivors.

The image of a punishing God instilled in childhood intensifies the feelings of guilt and fear of punishment and often leads to scrupulosity and rigid perfectionism. Survivors live a very cautious and controlled life so as to avoid any wrongdoing. They deny themselves many rightful pleasures and gratifications as a form of atonement. On the other hand, the feeling of “Everything is lost, so why bother!” may lead to an attitude of “Anything is okay!” and consequent promiscuity and re-victimisation.

When the perpetrator of abuse is an authority figure in a religious organization, the attitude of anger, resentment and inability to forgive the perpetrator gets generalised toward authority figures and institutions they represent. Survivors get disillusioned with religious institutions and authorities. They experience loss of trust in their religious superiors because often authority figures tend not to believe them or to blame them or refuse to take any action against the perpetrator. They often feel that authority figures are more interested in protecting the reputation of the institution or its officials than in the victims’ welfare.

One thing to be noted particularly as we discuss the effects of sexual abuse is that not every survivor goes through all the effects described. After all, people differ greatly in their inner strength, resilience and emotional resources. The consequences of abuse depend significantly on the pre-abuse personality of the survivor, especially his or her degree of resilience, and the supportive or unsupportive nature of the post-abuse environment. Many are able to take the abuse in their stride and go on to live happy and productive lives. But very many are indeed broken in body and crushed in spirit.

I conclude with excerpts from a letter which Anita, a survivor of childhood incest, wrote to her therapist, after attempting a healing exercise he had suggested to her. Her words express poignantly the deleterious effects of sexual abuse (the underlining is by Anita herself):

You know I am a broken person from my childhood days, as I have told you. I started doing the exercise as you have advised me…I was so disturbed I lost control of my emotions…I cried bitterly about one-and-half hours. All the events came back to my mind. Those days I did not feel anything. Now when I think I am completely exhausted, depressed. Why I am living like this? My body is lost and my life also is lost. With all this doubt today I am a broken person and I want to heal myself fully. …The thought and experience which I don’t want to come into my memory started troubling me—all confused. I don’t know what to do… I am in utter confusion…

At least four days I took to write the letter this much. Whenever I start writing, my tears don’t allow me to write. Then I sit and cry for a long time….

This is hurting me and feel to cry. It pains me. Don’t know what to do… Then guilt feelings like I should not have done all this. I am carrying a lot of painful experiences and I want to be a completely changed person. Is it possible for me? Will I be able to experience a real peace of mind and happiness?

The answer to Anita’s plaintive question is an emphatic “Yes!”

Sexual abuse can damage the body and crush the spirit. But healing and recovery is possible! Life can be good again!

The next issue of Magnet will describe the pathways to healing and recovery.

INTROSPECTION

• What are your main learnings from reading this article?
• If you are a sexual abuse survivor, how much of what has been presented is true to your own experience?

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