The researcher felt nervous about the request he was about to make of the nuns. Though David Snowdon had become well acquainted with these School Sisters of Notre Dame and counted many of them as friends, what he was now asking of them went beyond anything he had asked them to do previously. He wanted them to donate their brains to his scientific study.

Speaking in 1990 to the first group in Mankato, Minnesota, Dr. Snowdon explained the nature of Alzheimer’s disease and described his research plan. If they agreed to take part, the sisters would have a series of physical and mental tests each year. They would also donate their brains after they died.

In his book, Aging With Grace, published last year, Dr. Snowden shares some of the reactions of the nuns faced with this request. At first there was dead silence but gradually the sisters began to speak.

One of them, Sister Clarissa, said “Well of course he can have my brain. What good is it going to do me when I’m six feet under?”

Another, 95-year-old Sister Borgia, posed a question: “He is asking for our help. How can we say no?”

Of this first group, 90 percent of the eligible sisters in the Minnesota convent agreed to the request. By the time Dr. Snowdon made his presentation to the sisters living in other states, an astounding 678 had pledged to make the same gift.

The obstacles expected by one member of Dr. Snowdon’s scientific team proved surprisingly weak. This medical researcher, David Wekstein, had agreed about nuns being more altruistic than the average person but he thought they might still not want to donate their brains. “The brain is not like other organs,” he said. “People think of it as who they are–it contains their identity. It’s loaded with meaning–personal, emotional, spiritual.”

Dr. Wekstein was right about a few of the nuns: one explained her rationale for not donating by saying “I must return to God the way I came.”

Several others would have faced trouble from their families who objected to brain donation.

But the great majority of the nuns felt motivated by spiritual reasons to give this precious part of their body for love of God and neighbor.

Sister Rita Schwalbe undoubtedly expressed the attitude of many when she explained: “As sisters, we made the hard choice not to have children. Through brain donation, we can help unravel the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and give the gift of life in a new way to future generations.”

Yet these words should not make one think the commitment was prompt and easy for all of the sisters who made this choice. Dr. Snowdon was impressed with the “intense thought and prayer” that went into the decisions.

Dr. Snowdon quotes from a few sisters about how they made their choice to donate, words that emphasize their belief in life transformed after death.

“It is the spirit that is important after death, not the brain,” one said. Another shared her faith: “At the resurrection, I believe our bodies will be glorified and perfect. We will have no illness and no physical defects. Resurrection does not depend on how our bodies are in the grave.”

A key concept that helped motivate the sisters who agreed on making the gift of their brains was the spiritual idea of charism. They understand it as “a gift of the Spirit given to an individual for the good of all.”

Sister Gabriel Mary explained it further: “Each sister carries the charism with her as she devotes her life to others. It’s the spirit of our congregation.”

And Sister Rita stressed that this charism motivated them to work with the poor and powerless. “Who’s more powerless,” she asked, “than someone with Alzheimer’s disease?”

The farsightedness of these sisters and their generosity suggests a deep spiritual life. Indeed most people do feel wary of giving away their brains even after they have no more use for them. But these women live their whole lives with eyes directed toward the ultimate reality of God and the service of their fellow human beings. The brave decision to make a gift of their brains gives dramatic expression to their love of God and neighbor.                    

Richard Griffin

“There comes a level of prayer where it is no longer a question of ‘are you seeing something?’ but ‘are you aware of being seen?’ – if you like, sitting in the light and of just being and becoming who you really are.”

This talk about prayer comes from Rowan Williams who has just been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the most important position in the Anglican Church. He made these remarks in an interview first appearing in an Australian church publication, and later reprinted in The Tablet, a Catholic weekly from London.

To hear an archbishop talk about prayer is, strangely enough, unusual. Most prelates of that rank, it seems, focus in their public statements more on issues of public policy than on the spiritual life. But this Welshman, who will soon bear responsibility for the Church of England as its chief bishop, gives top priority to his own relationship to God and his search for the spirit in all that he does.

Rowan Williams, in addition to his spiritual orientation, is a practical man with domestic responsibilities. As a married man with young children, he is concerned each morning about getting them ready for school and giving them some personal time. But he still manages to fit in about a half an hour of prayer each morning using a formula popular among Eastern Orthodox Christians.

This is the so-called Jesus Prayer that goes: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” The archbishop uses a prayer rope favored by Eastern monks and featuring 100 knots at each one of which a person says this prayer.

Rowan Williams describes the effect of this prayer as follows: “By repeating the Jesus Prayer the mind is stilled and the heartbeat and the breath slow down, and you become more present to the place you are in. It’s really an anchorage in time.” So he experiences the effect of that ritual on both his soul and also his body.

This kind of prayer is obviously active as one recites the same formula over and over. However, it also has the power to transport a person into a new awareness of the divine presence. Much like the rosary, it fixes the mind on holy persons and events while allowing a freedom to just be present.

Archbishop Williams loves the writings of St. John of the Cross and finds much inspiration in them. Following this Spanish mystic, he takes pains to distinguish between prayer and feelings, in words that many people who want to pray may find helpful:

“You may be feeling terrible and God may be active; you maybe feeling nothing in particular, but God may be very active; you maybe feeling wonderful, and that may have nothing at all to do with God’s doing.”

The archbishop also favors a simple rule for prayer that he quotes from a former abbot of the English monastery, Downside: “Pray as you can and don’t try to pray as you can’t.” Keeping to this advice could save some people a lot of frustration. It’s almost like saying: all you have to do is follow your own instincts.

This man of prayer wants to avoid complication. Instead he favors simplification of the heart whereby “we simply become what we are and just sit there being a creature in the hand of God.” Just dwelling on God having us in his hand could be enough to sustain a beautifully simple prayer that might carry us through a entire period set aside for spiritual quiet.

It’s not about me, it’s about God: this is a sentiment about prayer that the archbishop might approve. If you feel lost when praying, that’s something probably shared by many other people. As the archbishop says, “Being out of your depth seems to be very basic to what’s going on in the sense that in prayer you cannot contain what is given.”

It sounds easy enough, simplicity in prayer, but it takes a kind of spiritual maturity to put this approach into practice. “Don’t just do something, stand there,” was ironic advice popular in the 1960’s. In the light of  Archbishop Williams’ habits of prayer, standing there (or sitting or kneeling) becomes a way of being in contact with God and growing in the life of the spirit.

Richard Griffin

Why are you a Baptist? Or a Unitarian? Why are you a Muslim? Or a Buddhist?

These questions, which could be addressed to various readers of this column, are prompted by a reading of a new book by historian Gary Wills. “Why I am a Catholic,” is the title of this latest in a long list of his publications.

He wrote it in answer to some critics of his previous book “Papal Sin,” which details ways in which modern popes have operated within “structures of deceit” instead of acting with respect for truth.  Professor Wills believes a critical attitude toward the church is consistent with loyalty as a believing Catholic and he tries to show why in this new book.

The book forms an imperfect unity consisting of: a brief memoir; a review of Catholic history focusing on the papacy; and an analysis of the Apostles Creed. To judge from what the author has said on the lecture circuit about this work, he intends the third part, the creed, to provide the chief reason for his being a Catholic.

When he comes to the creed, Professor Wills explains its threefold structure: faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For him, belief in the Holy Trinity is not a frill but belongs at the very heart of the Catholic tradition. He shows this doctrine to be all about love and quotes from a sermon of St. Augustine: “It is a trinity: the lover, the loved, and love itself.”

While setting forth his appreciation of the Holy Trinity, the author also emphasizes that numbers and relationships cannot adequately express who God is. As the transcendent one, God goes far beyond any human ways of describing him. As God says in the Bible, “My ways are not your ways.”

While analyzing the Apostles Creed, Gary Wills shows a scholar’s knowledge of history and theology. But he does not merely appreciate the doctrinal heritage of his faith intellectually. Beyond his activity as a scholar interested in religious issues, he takes the spiritual life seriously.

He prays regularly and takes part in public worship at Sunday Mass and at other times as well. Among the prayer forms he favors, he mentions the rosary, which he recites daily. Incidentally, he rejects the view of some Catholics who consider saying the rosary outmoded

The first section of the new book consists of a short memoir of the author’s early life and his career as a scholar and writer. It provides a personal history of how his spiritual life took root and grew strong. Let me here suggest that the memoir may provide a better answer to the question he poses in the title.

He grew up in a family that took Catholicism seriously, even though his father was not Catholic himself. Young Gary had gone to elementary schools taught by nuns and a high school run by Jesuits. Thus he was formed in the ways of Catholic Christianity and became deeply committed to this tradition.

After high school graduation in 1951, he joined the Jesuits who had been his teachers. In the novitiate, he experienced serious doubts about this vocation and ultimately left the Jesuit ranks in 1957, long before ordination to the priesthood. By this time, he was highly educated in the ways of both spiritual and intellectual life.

This family and educational background could have played greater importance in helping the author answer the basic question posed by his book. Another answer might have been: “I am a Catholic because I grew up in a Catholic family where the faith was handed on to me.”

This answer is one that many other people, perhaps most, would give if they were asked the question. The role played by upbringing in forming one’s view of the world and our spiritual values is enormous.

A dear friend whose wisdom I respect has suggested to me that perhaps we should not be able to answer the question posed by the Wills book. Why we have this or that spiritual identification usually goes too deep for words.

As Pascal says, “The heart has reasons that reason knows not of.” Yes, we can provide some explanation for who we are spiritually, but the real answer may well be mystical. We may even believe we are who we are because of a call from God rather than because of any initiative of ours.

Richard Griffin

“It was a great experience for Nicholas and me,” says theologian Harvey Cox about a trip he and his teenage son took this summer. The two traveled to several states in the South where the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s took place. At some of these sites, Harvey Cox had taken personal part in events that were important in the history of this movement.

In Williamstown, North Carolina, for example, they visited the jail where the father had been imprisoned for two days before being transferred to another jail for a week. “I walked around and peered in the windows,” he says of his stop at the now-abandoned building.

To the father, a veteran theology professor at Harvard Divinity School and an ordained Baptist minister, the return meant a chance to renew the spirit that animated him and his fellow pioneers, four decades ago. He also wanted to show his son where events crucial to 20th century American history took place.

For the son, it was an opportunity to share in his father’s personal history and to learn more about that history for himself. As they moved from place to place, the boy used a camcorder to keep a record of their trip.

Of all the places visited, Professor Cox felt most moved by Selma, Alabama. There they stayed near the Alabama River at a hotel, formerly segregated but now something of a civil rights memorial. They also walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where in 1965 marchers had been brutally attacked by state troopers and the merciless forces of the local sheriff.

Birmingham was another place where they stopped, this also the site of bloody attacks on peaceful demonstrators.  In May of 1963, hundreds of schoolchildren and teenagers marched with adult demonstrators to a local park in order to protest segregation. The notorious sheriff Bull Connor turned police dogs and fire hoses on the marchers and arrested thousands of demonstrators. In the same area during this period four young girls were burned to death in a church.

In Atlanta, father and son visited the Martin Luther King Memorial and found it rich in memorabilia of Dr. King’s life and the historical records of the civil rights movement.

The travelers also visited Mississippi delta where Harvey Cox had worked in 1968,  and where he was delighted to be reunited with some of his old associates.

He was also happy to note that some conditions had changed for the better. Automobile trouble led to one example of striking change.

When he stopped on the side of the road because his rental car had boiled over, he saw a Mississippi State highway patrol car come up behind his. With apprehension, he remembered that police in that state had often treated outsiders brutally. Imagine his surprise and relief when out of the police car emerged two officers, black women, who greeted him with: “Hi! How are you doing? Is there anything we can do to help?”

On the other hand, much remains as it was. Many of the changes remain on the surface, reports Professor Cox, and too many people of color still find themselves with opportunities severely limited by prejudicial racial attitudes.

When I asked Harvey Cox whether he considered the trip a pilgrimage, he answered without hesitation: “That’s exactly what it was.” He compares his journey to the great medieval routes to  Compostella , on the western edge of Europe where, through the centuries, millions of pilgrims have traveled.

The Coxes approached the sites in a reverential frame of mind, though they had the wisdom to take occasional breaks. For instance, they went to a Red Sox game in Atlanta, where they saw the Sox lose to the Braves. It made sense to find some relief from oppressively hot weather and the fatigue of covering long distances. Medieval pilgrims did much the same, although without the benefits of baseball and air conditioning.

Radio and television journalist, Christopher Lydon, says of Harvey Cox’s original experience in the civil rights struggles: “He was there when it took guts to do it.” Professor Cox himself points away from himself to the larger meaning of the events that he has recently relived: “The Freedom Movement remains for me one of the most significant chapters in American history.”

Richard Griffin