bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
St Augustine on Catechizing
Authors: Farmer Hugh
Published: August 2024

St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo 396-430, wrote the treatise De catechizandis rudibus for Deogratias, a deacon of Carthage, in about the year 400. It describes both the subject-matter and the method of catechetics but also includes most useful instruction on preaching and teaching. St Augustine continued the ‘narration’ or historical exposition of the truths of faith from the Bible down to his own day; the personal ‘exhortation’ he recommends does not seem to have been obligatory before his time. The treatise, which depends in part on St Irenaeus’ Constitutiones Apostolorum and Demonstratio Praedicationis Apostolicae, has been extraordinarily influential in the history of preaching. It has been translated into English at least seven times; the following abridgment owes much to the edition of J. P. Christopher, Augustinus, De Catechizandis Rudibus (Washington, D.C. 1926).

You have asked me, brother Deogratias, to write you something useful about instructing candidates for the catechumenate, for you tell me that at Carthage, where you are a deacon, those who receive their first instruction in the Christian faith are often brought to you, because you are supposed to have great facility in catechizing with your thorough knowledge of the faith and your charm of style.
The Essentials of Prayer
Authors: Lawler Peter
Published: August 2024

I spent this morning preparing some lectures on John Locke. He is, I think, a dull writer but I found a passage in his Introduction to the Essay which expresses very nearly my own feelings in reading this opening paper. ‘Everyone', he says, must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham, and in an age which produces such, masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr Newton, with some other of that strain, its ambition enough to be employed as an underlabourer in clearing the ground a little.’ At this conference then which has brought together so many Boyles and Sydenhams of the spiritual life I shall try only to clear the ground a little.

Let us begin—in the fashionable manner—with our present situation. Many of us have not met before. Suppose we engage upon our first conversation. There is an imperative need to find pics of conversation no matter how inconsequential. As acquaintance grows into friendship, however, small talk becomes unnecessary. Pauses in the conversation cease to be embarrassing.
Methods of Meditation
Authors: Hollings Michael
Published: August 2024

Put all thy heart's confidence in the Lord, on thy own skill relying never; wilt thou but keep him in thy thoughts wherever thou goest, he will show thee the straight path.' (PROVERBS 3, 4.)

We live today in a world which has lost the ability to meditate. Such a generalization must exclude the individual souls who are trying to follow the advice of Proverbs, ‘keep him in thy thoughts wherever thou goest', and those who have entered religion. But taken by and large it is a fair commentary on the present situation, as can be seen from the following extract from a broadcast talk, given some years ago by Bertrand Russell: ‘As men grow more industrialized and regimented, the kind of delight which is common in children becomes impossible to adults, because they are always thinking of the ”next thing” and cannot let themselves be absorbed in the moment. This habit of “thinking of the next thing” is more fatal to any kind of aesthetic excellence than any other habit of mind that can be imagined, and if art, in any important sense, is to survive, it will not be by the foundation of solemn academies, but by recapturing the capacity for wholehearted joys and sorrows which prudence and foresight have all but destroyed.’
The Spirit and the Bride: II
Authors: Ginns Reginald
Published: August 2024

The claim of the sixteenth-century Reformers to return to the teaching of the primitive Church by the aid of the written Scriptures is still heard today, but not so often as formerly, because the spirit of liberal criticism has completely undermined that reverent confidence in the Word of God which was once so strong in the children of the Reformation. As The Times (London) confessed not long ago, ‘to the majority of Englishmen the open Bible is now a closed book…. The popular mind at present takes for granted that the Bible has been fatally discredited and that “nobody now believes that kind of thing”. The Reformers have handed the Church (the writer means the non-Catholic churches, of course) today a problem which they could not have foreseen. Rejecting both the papal usurpation ano the late-medieval abuses and corruptions, they sought to recover a “pure” Christianity.
The Grammar School and the Liturgy
Authors: Cunliffe C. R. A.
Published: August 2024

What is the liturgy? What does one mean by a grammar school? What has each to do with the other? The burden of this paper is to essay some answers to each of these questions, endeavouring to develop maturer concepts of education and liturgy, and to make practical suggestions about the place of liturgy in the life of the school. The liturgy has an important part to play in the Catholic education of all children, so that much of what I have to say will apply to other kinds of school, and it will apply for the most part equally to girls and boys, though I shall generally refer to boys. My own teaching experience in Catholic schools has been largely confined to the grammar school, but this is not the sole reason why I have preferred to speak of the grammar school and the liturgy. I believe that the grammar school offers exceptional opportunities not only for training its own pupils in a right sense and practice of liturgy, but also for assisting the whole Catholic body in this country to arrive at a more realistic understanding of the liturgical life of the Church.
The Person in Education
Authors: St John Henry
Published: August 2024

The title of this address may sound to you a little tough and abstract, yet it is a good subject for this afternoon’s meeting because you are all parents, and each parent has a Person, often several persons, your children, in whom you are deeply interested, and for whose welfare and education you are personally responsible, since God has chosen you to co-operate with him in bringing them into being, and in preparing them for their independent lire as persons in the world.

Now I am not a parent and it would be impertinent for me to try to teach you your job as parents in detail. What I want to do this afternoon is to remind you of certain basic principles underlying the true notion of education. Principles are important; without them we can never really understand any problem, and this is a problem it is supremely important to understand thorghly.
Scripture Terms— I: 'Testament’
Authors: Johnston Leonard
Published: August 2024

The word which we translate as ‘testament’ could equally well be called an alliance, a pact, an agreement, a covenant. And when we speak of a ‘new covenant', we are implicitly appealing to an ‘old’ covenant—we mean that our present relationship with God is the conclusion and climax of a relationship which already existed in some form. Therefore, if we are to understand this basic institution of our religion we have to see it in its original setting.

For practical purposes we may begin with Abraham. Abraham was a semi-nomad wandering on the outskirts of civilisation in the second millenium before Christ. His position was not unique or strange: it is quite a normal way of life, one that is still lived by people in the same circumstances in the Middle East today; it is even a necessary way of life for people who depend for their livelihood on animals which have to keep on the move in search of pasture and water.
St Dositheus
Authors: Felicity
Published: August 2024

'He was well to do and lived a careless and worldly life in a military circle'. Dositheus is not the only young man to be described in these terms in any century. It is safe to say he is not the only one to have been converted by the fear of eternal punishment either. Perhaps in the twentieth century when the notion of hell is considered a naive superstition, such a conversion may be more rare, but Dositheus was born around the middle of the sixth when (we are pleased to think) people were not so civilized and enlightened.

The young man heard from his friends and soldier acquaintances a great deal of talk about Jerusalem and made up his mind to visit the city and see for himself whether ‘army language’ was exaggerating its attractions. He toured the chief sights and was duly impressed, but it was a flamboyant painting depicting the tortures of the damned that made him stand still and stare in Gethsemane.
The Latter Years
Authors: Lofting Mary Angela
Published: August 2024

The latter years of a Catholic who has held the faith from birth, and practised it consistently on an ordinary working level, represent a period when much that supported the soul falls away, when former spiritual helps are shed and life is left with only the necessities for carrying on. As on the natural physical level these years are a stern test of the individual, of his traditions, good sense, the breadth of view experience has brought him, so the soul taking stock of its spiritual resources looks back to the things that have remained and receives its last challenge of final perseverance. Thus the sum total of what life has taught on both levels lies open now in behaviour and reaction to circumstance.
Scruples at Confession
Authors: Hilton Walter
Published: August 2024

To thee dear brother in Christ our Lord send the spirit of counsel and of ghostly strength. Thou writest to me that thou art troubled and tarried of thy might and married in all thy conscience for thy shrift, for thou would shrive thee plainly of ail thy sins and thou cannot, and therefore thy grace is withdrawn from thee. And thou makest this skill thereto. Since shrift is the gate of all the sacraments and of grace also, and thou mayst not come to clear and plenary confession, how shalt thou then come to any other grace? And therefore I wot well thy soul is tormented and thy mind is in great bitterness. Forsooth nevertheless our Lord Jesus shall soften thy sorrow by his mercy when him likes. The sorrow that thou sufferest is great, nevertheless it is wholesome. Look that thou be strong of grace neither mistrust nor despair. Thou feelest thyself full of pride, thou canst not void nor tell it. Thou shrivest thy sins as they come to mind in time of confession, and nevertheless thou trowest not that thou art verily shriven.
Mysticisms
Authors: Gilby Thomas
Published: August 2024

The Church is like a noble house and estate, and we are welcome to the run of it—to wander through the apartments, explore the galleries and secret courts, go roof-climbing, sample the cellars, walk in the garden, exclaim at the vistas, inspect the stables, swim in the lake, take our ease, and contemplate the domain stretching to the distance, over the hills and far away. Non est hie aliud nisi domus Dei et porta caeli. And it is our home. Of course we know that in a sense, but in fact are we not inclined to think of it as National Trust and behave like respectful trippers? The motor-coaches crunch on the gravel and we follow the guide inside, stare at some of the treasures, buy our postcards and then have tea.
Husbands and Wives
Authors: Todd John M.
Published: August 2024

If we look at contemporary society, we are struck immediately by its obsession with sex, with sexual desire and its results. Marriage, divorce and sexual aberration are always news. The politician, the police, the social planner, the psychogist, the moralist, are concerned with population figures, juvenile delinquency, family planning, unmarried mothers, and sexual neurosis, resulting sometimes in complete inhibition, sometimes in complete promiscuity. They are all concerned with the family, and with what is happening at the root of the family, with the relationship between husband and wife. If we look at Christianity we find at its centre a doctrine of love, a sacramental doctrine which has its common realization in marriage; we find the sacrament of the family with its root in the relationship between husband and wife.

The most publicized aspect of the relationship between husband and wife today is the control of the number of children born to them. Various methods are used to prevent conception ensuing from intercourse. The most frequently heard aspect of the relationship from the Catholic point of view concerns the same subject.
Suffering in Israel
Authors: Steinmann J.
Published: August 2024

It may fairly be said that in ancient Hebrew poetry suffering holds the place reserved for love in the lyrical compositions of the literature of the West. It is, moreover, under the pressure of tragic events that suffering has become the leitmotiv of the latter part of the Bible in which the book of Job occurs.
The Priesthood and Contemplation
Authors: Griffiths Dom Bede
Published: August 2024

The Mass, said St Vincent Ferrer, is the highest act of contemplation. This relation between the Mass and contemplation, and hence between the priesthood and the contemplative life, is something which has received very Jittle attention; and yet it is something of supreme importance W the spiritual life of a priest, and in the whole conception of contemplation and the contemplative life. For too long, contemplation has been regarded as a matter of individual piety, the final phase in a system of meditation and mental prayer, to which few are expected to attain and which has no apparent relation to the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church. Garrigou-Lagrange has done much to correct this tendency, by showing that contemplation is not to be regarded as an extraordinary grace to which only a few can aspire, but as part of the normal perfection of a Christian life; the development of the grace which we all receive at baptism under the influence of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.
Ecclesiastical Obedience
Authors: Robert R.B.
Published: August 2024

For those who are of the diocesan clergy, the undisputed authorities must naturally be our Lord himself, St Paul and the Popes: from them we shall seek for the principles of our conduct, and then consider the practical application of those principles to our lives.
The Angels of Dante
Authors: Moncrieff Georgina Grace
Published: August 2024

To trace the angelology of Dante back to all its sources would be an exacting task for a scholar. His mind was like a crystal; strong, and exquisitely polished, and reflecting light from many facets. From two books, however, much of this light came, and from their gift he found the luminous material with which he clothed his angels. These books are the Bible, and the works of the supposed Dionysius the Areopagite. The Bible is, of course, the supreme authority for any conception of the angelic nature—the ‘Master-Light of all our seeing', the Force that moulds even when most unrecognized, and Dante's imagination no doubt found its prime source of inspiration there. The first thing we learn, however, is that angels are never described in the Old Testament.
The Human Condition: A Study of some Seventeenth Century French Writers
Authors: Squire Aelred
Published: August 2024

'We are like ruinous old houses that are falling down on every side. If you prop them up on one side, they fall down on the other. They must be supported in all directions, and renovated from the very foundations, for the whole thing is going to rack and ruin. We are all the same, the perfect and the imperfect alike. History is full of souls that have been lost by the abundance of their graces … Lucifer found the occasion of his ruin in heaven'.

These few phrases, which end with something that sounds like a reminiscence of Gregory the Great, are nevertheless as characteristic of their own author as they are of their period. They form part of an address given by Pierre de Bérulle2 at the opening of his visitation of one of those Carmelite convents for whose existence in France he, more than anyone else, was responsible
Religious Teaching in Schools
Authors: Boxer Charles
Published: August 2024

In to my experience it is certainly the case that a lot of educationalists in this country become genuinely bewildered, distressed, shocked and even angry when they hear it suggested that we should take the scriptures and not the catechism as the source of our religious instruction. some people are willing to admit that some change in our catechism might not be a bad thing, but very few are prepared to listen to the argument that what we need is a new conception of the function of the catechism rather than a new catechism. Everybody seems to be assumging that those in favour of our present methods are loyally upholding such immunities as the Church's attitude, authority or tradition, and that those who suggest a change are propounding strange, dangerous theories culled from disreputable sources and dubious disciplines.
The Worship of Our Lady
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

‘We should remember’, says St Thomas Aquinas commenting on the Ave Maria, ‘that of old it was a very great thing for angels to appear to men, and also was it the right thing for men to show them reverence. Thus to the credit of Abraham it is written that he showed hospitality to angels and reverenced them. But that an angel had shown reverence to man was a thing unheard of until the time when he reverently greeted the Blessed Virgin saying: Ave, Hail’ Thus in the eyes of Catholic theologians the veneration of our Lady began at the Annunciation when she was accorded honour and respect by the messenger of God himself.
The Structure of Religious Poverty
Authors: Magrath Oswin
Published: August 2024

The love of Lady Poverty is not a simple thing, a plain virtue, but a complexus of spiritual qualities which extend to the whole of the spiritual life, since poverty is one of the fundamental means of perfection, and therefore something which involves the practice of perfection. In order to be able to envisage it properly and grasp its function, it is important to distinguish clearly the virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost which play an immediate part in the practice of holy poverty, and make up its spirit. Poverty deals with man's relationship to material things, and their perfect use, or non-use.
Carthusian Asceticism
Authors: Carthusian A
Published: August 2024

If you were to ask each of us, ‘Are you willing to die to yourselves?’ we should all reply sincerely, ‘Yes; we are willing….’ But it is not enough to say or even to think so, for it is possible to deceive ourselves. Dying to ourselves is no theoretical problem composed of abstract thoughts and reasonings; nor does it consist in making resolutions for the morrow which is always later…. It means putting them into practice. To die to ourselves externally is to detach ourselves from all ties, whatever they may be; but this detachment must be complete, whole, lrrevocable, and there must be no looking back. This is going a long way….
The Person and the Place—V: Herrad and Her Garden of Delights
Authors: Webb Geoffrey
Published: August 2024

Commenting on two famous medieval encyclopedias, the Liber Floridus of Lambert of Saint Omer, and the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, Carl Nordenfalk observes how these authors ‘combine a broad universal vision with a special interest in their home surroundings’. In Herrad's case this is certainly most striking. Her vision could hardly be broader (it is even comparable to Saint Hildegard's), yet the picture which she paints of Hohenburg, the shrine of St Odile where she was abbess, leaves no doubt about the central point of her vast twelth-century universe. The monastery stands on a green mound, without perspective, decorated by three enlarged sprigs of clubmoss for trees. The nuns are grouped in a harmonious ensemble of purple, green, blue and black gowns, with brown cloaks. The congregatio religiosa ... in dei servido in Hohenburc caritative adunata, is Herrad's first preoccupation, and if, for caritative, we are meant to read cantative, as one authority suggests, the picture is even more charming.
The Life of Grace: I
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

The author of the article on Mysticism in the Dictionnaire de Thèologie Catholique bases his study on the idea of the experimental knowledge of God. It is an idea that anyone wanting to treat the problem by the inductive and psychological method would be bound to arrive at. The theologian tries to confine this field of enquiry within concepts and laws, and he will define mysticism as the predominant influence of the gifts of the Holy Ghost in a Christian life. This is the standpoint we must take up if we want to discover St Thomas's attitude, and in the end our problem will amount to this: what place have the theology and the activity of the gifts of the Holy Ghost in the organism of the life of grace? Both, in fact, depend on those attributes that enrich and transform human nature, attributes called, in a word, the supernatural life.
Works on Our Lady
Authors: Corr Gerard M.
Published: August 2024

This is a devout thesis, ‘in sensu composito', and is well worth reading and acting upon. Briefly, the author believes that he has hit upon a great truth in St John's gospel which hardly anyone seems to have adverted to, viz., that on Calvary the Beloved Disciple was entrusted to the care and guardianship of Mary not merely as the representative of the human race but as a priest: it was because he was a priest that he could adequately an” properly be chosen to represent all mankind at the foot of the cross. There is much more to say for this thesis than might appear at first glance. The author has marshalled many persuasive reasons and presented them forcefully. His style is rather alarming, with capitals and thick typ and broken sentences strewn all over the pages, and one fears he would defend it as ‘the psychology of the printed word’ (he does go so far as ‘ speak of the ‘psychology of our Lord on the cross’) but one soon gets use to this, and it has its advantages.
The Lady of Fair Love
Authors: Farrell Ambrose
Published: August 2024

In his latest encyclical, ‘Fulgens corona gloria', the Pope has proclaimed our Lady's Year. The occasion of this proclamation is the centenary celebration in December of the infallible definition of the Immaculate Conception, of the Virgin Mother of God. This is but an instance of the progressive development of Marian tradition from the earliest times is seen to be implicit and almost instinctive in the Faith of the Church. Pope Pius XII has allied himself closely with that tradition by becoming its spokesman. This he has done in defining the dogma of the bodily Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven, and dedicating the present commemorative year to her honour.

Between Mary and the mysteries of faith there is an essential connection. This is seen so clearly in the Holy Rosary, wherein the joys, sorrows and glories of a holy partnership between the Son and his Mother are woven into a garland of prayer.
Virgo Prudentissima
Authors: Velarde Ralph
Published: August 2024

The idea is current that virtue and intelligence have little to do with each other; the idea implied in the line of the song, ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever'. We may readily agree that virtue has little do with mere smartness, or with that slick mental dexterity so much admired in the lower reaches of the commercial world; but it is certain doctrine that mature, adult virtue cannot dispense with intelligence since the will is the executive or directive faculty of the intellect.

The planning directive virtue of the moral life is prudence, and it is an intellectual virtue in the sense that its seat Is the intellect, and its function is to teach us how to act, applying general principles to conduct here and now in given concrete circumstances. It enables us above all else to keep the end or reason of action in view.
The Problem of Communication in our approach to other Christians
Authors: Bennett Mabel
Published: August 2024

Reunion, is in the air today; in discussion in Church circles, in the press, on the radio and television, and even in the House of Lords. Among the non-Catholic Churches the last few years have seen schemes of reunion for South India, North India and Ceylon, and all these schemes show a readiness to examine established positions in the light of the present challenge to Christianity from atheism and materialism.

This drawing together of the non-Catholic Churches is comparatively recent, and is very largely the achievement of the Student Christian Movement and other inter-denominational societies that have made many of those who have worked with them impatient of the barriers that divide one denomination from another, particularly on the Mission Field. The result has been a growing awareness of the evils of division and of the damage done to the Christian cause in the eyes of the unbeliever.
Girolamo Savonarola
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: August 2024

He was a little below medium height and lightly built, but his erect carriage and fine head made him stand out in company. His complexion was fresh, his hair dark chestnut, his eyes greyish-blue, probably, and very brilliant. The long curved nose, strong jaw and full lips are familiar to us from portraits; not so the charm of expression, the noble grace of bearing and gesture that impressed and attracted his contemporaries. We imagine Savonarola grim; as fierce as his terrible sermons; but his nature, all the evidence shows, was warmly affectionate and even gentle. He won the Florentines, especially the young and the poor, by so evidently loving them. An early writer says that he had about him ‘una’ certa humanità humile et urbana', and dilates on the beauty of his hands, so clear-skinned and spare that the light seemed to show through them. We are told that his rough habit was always neat and—a remarkable thing in that climate—never soiled with sweat.
Family Life and the Common Life
Authors: Ward Maisie
Published: August 2024

The great need is for a fully common life, within the family, which will make the family of use to the world around it. In past ages the monastic community was the spearhead. Today I feel it is the family, the Catholic family, which is to be the spearhead for Catholic penetration of a pagan world.

To make common life within the family a reality it is necessary to treat the children of the family as persons. I disagree with the saying, ‘Give me a child until it is seven …'. Apart from the mythical child of five who, on being told he had committed a mortal sin, replied: ‘Oh, but I cannot commit a mortal sin yet because I have not got the use of reason', one trains rather than teaches a child of under seven.
St Thomas Aquinas and Mother Julian on Charity
Authors: Marshall D. E.
Published: August 2024

If we consider the ideas of St Thomas and Dame Julian on divine charity we find that there are similarities and differences. As might be expected, St Thomas is more analytical; however, Dame Julian has some ideas the sources of which may perhaps be found in her contemporary European mystics. Whereas St Thomas works out his ideas from his theology and on a developed plan, Dame Julian's thoughts are the result of her visions and come in the order of their occurrence.

St Thomas writes: ‘God's love as a divine gift is eternal and immutable, yet as regards the effect it imprints upon us it may at times be interrupted in so far as we at times fall away from him and again return to him. Now the effect of the divine love in us—which is taken away by sin—is grace whereby a man becomes worthy of eternal life; from this, however, sin shuts him out.’ (I-II, 113.)
Mummy, Here's God
Authors: Campbell Duncan
Published: August 2024

I am writing this article about the duty, as it is considered, of the pnest to visit in his parish. I take the title from what an excitable little girl exclaimed once at my entry. Her pert young mother's laughter, when she ran out to see who ‘on earth’ it was, and sat collapsed on the stairs, still jars in memory in my ear. I know I am not God, I mean. I don't know that it is quite so funny.

The subject of visiting does interest us all. It is part of ideal Catholic life: Father at home in the Catholic family, intimate with everyone, not only available in need as a close friend, but influencing all the time by his contact, towards good relations, better life, finer manners, more careful choice of career, deeper judgement in marriage; his very presence reminding of faith, restoring hope, inspiring love; counteracting the whole battery of trivial and stultifying fantasies current as so much of today's politics, literature and entertainment. One can hardly imagine full Catholic life without it.
An Ambiguous Saint
Authors: Windass G. S.
Published: August 2024

The tenth century was a time of change in the common attitude of Christians towards war; a change in fact so great as to be best understood as a swing from one extreme to another, and we should therefore have in mind from the outset two diametrically opposed points of view.

On the one hand, there is the uncompromising rejection of war and of military service by the early Christians. In the first two centuries after Christ, there was virtually no possibility of Christian participation in worldly conflicts between states. The militia Christi, the soldiers of Christ, were always contrasted with the militia saecularis, the soldiers of the world. The soldiers of Christ were to fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons, and the final victory was the victory of the martyr; the soldiers of the world fought with carnal weapons for base material ends, and were subject to the lusts of the flesh; there was nothing m common between the camp of light and the camp of darkness.
Prayer of Petition and After
Authors: Steuart R.H.J.
Published: August 2024

Isn't it pleasing to God that my prayer should be just simply Thy Will be done'? But our Lord did not only tell us to treat God like a father who will change his mind; he emphasized it by the story of a woman who asked for bread and was refused, and went on asking, and at last, because she went on asking, she got it. Of course God does not change his mind; but there is something in us that corresponds to that. Every time you pray to God for something, you are equivalently asking him to change his mind.

Ask yourselves, would it really be pleasing to a father or mother if their children never asked them for anything? They want to be asked! Otherwise it would seem their children were lacking in affection for them. I expect it is the perpetual burden of mothers’ and fathers’ lives to be asked again and again. Well! God, Var Father, wants to be asked.
Our Lady in Scripture—IV: Daughter of Zion
Authors: Weatherhead Benet
Published: August 2024

The infancy narrative of the third gospel, Luke I. 5—2. 52, is very different in character from that of the first gospel, longer, richer in allusions, written from a somewhat different angle, and using a different series of events. It goes without saying that the main explicit purpose of both is the same, to introduce the gospel narrative with an account of the origin of the Messiah: Jesus is the heir to the messianic kingdom, born miraculously of a virgin, and either by blood or by legal adoption a member of the royal line. But the divergences soon begin. In Matthew the principal actor is Joseph, in Luke, Mary. In Matthew, the story is one largely of danger and conflict, the infant Messiah is taken for refuge to a foreign land, gentiles acknowledge and protect him. In Luke the narrative is almost wholly joyous and he is acclaimed by representatives of his own people.
The Person and the Place—VII: Thierry of Chartres
Authors: Webb Geoffrey
Published: August 2024

For many of us, as for the Mari tains, the impact of Chartres is a cumulative experience that reaches its climax at suitable altitude, perhaps halfway up the clocher neuf, or circling at some point those ‘outer balconies, high above ground, through an unbelievable entanglement of arches and buttresses'. From that scaffolding that suspends one between roofs and towers, there is nothing left but the final admiration … ‘the unity and harmony of so much lofty beauty could have as its foundation only the unity of truth'. Having left beneath one the particular beauties of stained glass, of proportions, of sumptuous effects, here, it is the anatomy of the Church, spread out beneath one as it might be for the blessed Damosel, that impresses the memory with something absolute.
Prologue to the Longer Rule
Authors: Great St Basil The
Published: August 2024

We have come together, by the grace of God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who have set before us one and the same end of religious life. And it is plain that you on your part are longing to learn something of that which concerns salvation. I therefore for my part am bound to declare God's righteous acts, since night and day there runs in my mind what the Apostle says: ‘For three years by night and day I did not cease to admonish every one of you with tears’ (Acts 20, 31). Since also the present time is very favourable, and this place provides quiet and complete freedom from the tumults without, let us unite our prayers, that while we give to our fellow-servants their measure of corn in season, you, like good ground, receiving the word, may, as Scripture says (Matt. 13, 23), yield a hundred-fold a perfect fruit in righteousness.
The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
Authors: O'Mahony J.
Published: August 2024

In Scripture there are revealed mysteries so deep as to defy man's unaided reason. Unless God himself had revealed them, man would never have come to know them. But such is the conflict between the depths of these sublime mysteries and the merely human language that cloaks them that often it seems that Scripture is proposing for a our belief some impossibility. Our faith tells us that this cannot be so, but we might be tempted to think that the expression of these truths is not exact, nor what it should be. This again is not true; what is true, however, is that we have to use God-given reason to lay bare still more God's revelations. Then we see that God's revelation is in no way an impossibility and that Scripture's expression is exact. A striking example of this fact is furnished by the revealed doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There are many passages in Scripture where we find a revelation of this mystery. St Paul writing to the Romans says ‘But you live the life of the Spirit not of nature; that is, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.
An Adventurous Family
Authors: Valentine Ferdinand
Published: August 2024

The English Society of the Grail is a secular institute, autonomous and ecclesiastically approved, with its own rules and constitution. Its members are not religious, but laywomen who wish to dedicate their whole lives to work for Christ in the lay apostolate. Those who come to the Society come to an adventurous family.

Any girl can join the Society if she is willing to give herself to Christ to do anything, anywhere and at any time. There is room Hi die Society for girls of every social level and of every occupation, for anyone who wants to tlirow in her lot for life with a society of pioneers and who is prepared to accept die discipline of that Society. For lay institutes must be disciplined and their members be bound together with bonds of steel.

The lay apostolate cannot be driven by any mere transitory enthusiasm—indeed there is a distinct danger for women in any violent and undisciplined enthusiasm and if this is the driving power of an organisation then the life of an apostle cannot last longer than a few years.
The Assumption in the Liturgy of the Eastern Church
Authors: Gavriloff Michael
Published: August 2024

In the liturgical tradition of the Eastern Church the idea of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin includes the following incidents: the death of the Virgin, her burial. her rising again, her assumption, and finally her enthrone- ment in heaven as Queen of all being. According to the eastern manner of thinking it is the first event, that is to say the death of the Blessed Virgin, which occupies the central position in liturgical prayer and meditation. This death is called the falling asleep’ or ‘dormition', whence comes the name of the feast of 15th August, ‘The Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary'.

In preparation for this feast there is a period of fasting called the Lent of the Dormition which begins on 1st August. The 14th is the Vigil and the whole festival ends on the 23rd.
'The Roman Catholic Point of View'
Authors: de Riedmatten Henri
Published: August 2024

In the liturgical tradition of the Eastern Church the idea of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin includes the following incidents: the death of the Virgin, her burial. her rising again, her assumption, and finally her enthronement in heaven as Queen of all being. According to the eastern manner of thinking it is the first event, that is to say the death of the Blessed Virgin, which occupies the central position in liturgical prayer and meditation. This death is called the falling asleep’ or ‘dormition', whence comes the name of the feast of 15th August, ‘The Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary'. In preparation for this feast there is a period of fasting called the Lent of the Dormition which begins on 1st August. The 14th is the Vigil and the whole festival ends on the 23rd. Originally the feast was observed locally, first in Palestine about the middle of the fifth century and later spreading throughout the Byzantine Empire between 588 and 602 during the reign of the Emperor Maurice. At Rome the feast was introduced by Theodore I (642-649).
Magnificat
Authors: Black Giles
Published: August 2024

We may contemplate in this Mystery how our Lady was carried up body and soul into heaven, to the great joy of the heavenly court. And as we contemplate the mystery we may allow the phrases of our Lady's own song, the Magnificat, to pass through our minds.

My soul doth magnify the Lord—soon after the death of God's Mother that soul of hers which had ever magnified him was re-united to the body which had given a body to him through whom ‘all honour and glory’ is given to the Father.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour—Mary was preredeemed by Jesus. From this fact we understand her Immaculate Conception, her sinless life and her Assumption into glory where her rejoicing is fulfilled.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid—it is the humble of heart whom God raises on high—he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Secular Institutes: II—For The World
Authors: Melia Teresa
Published: August 2024

‘Sent into the world on my errand.’ The word apostle signifies one who is sent.

Who sends, to whom, and why? Christ is the sender. To whom does Christ send his apostles? To the whole world. The Kingdom of God has no visible frontiers, it is within the heart of each human being. ‘Go out all over the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation’ (Mark xvi, 15). What is Christ's errand? To deliver the message 'which concerns the Word who is Life'.

‘What he was from the first, what we have heard about him, what our own eyes have seen of him, what it was that met our gaze and the touch of our hands.’ (I John i, 1.) Why is the message delivered? ‘That you too may share in our fellowship … with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’
Learn of Me
Authors: Valentin Arthur
Published: August 2024

Lubac, in his book Catholicism, has rightly pointed out that the term Catholic as applied to the Church since the second century is basically an intrinsic note. Nonetheless it has a popular use in our day as denoting the Church's worldwide commission: ‘Going, therefore, teach ye all nations’ (Douai) or ‘Making disciples of all nations’ (Knox). So, if we are asked what religion we belong to we invariably reply—'the Catholic'. By this we mean we do not belong to a merely national church or religion, such as the Anglican, but to the Church Universal. Yet our first name, given to us at Antioch, in the days of the Apostles, was Christian, i.e. the followers of Christ. Hence, Christian is our fundamental name, and the Christian Church is Catholic because she is meant to reunite all men in Christ.
Relationship
Authors: Batten Cecily
Published: August 2024

You may have wondered why this title consisted of the word relationship in the singular, instead of relationships, in the plural. There is a significance in it. The baby is born into one relationship, that with the mother, and ends up, if all goes well, in one relationship, that with God. All that happens in between is a development from this first simple relationship and at the same time a preparing for the very different sort of simple relationship in which we all hope to end, and for which this life on earth is a preparation. It is intended today to examine the psychological development of relationship in this life in the light of its function in preparation us for the final relationship in the life to come, with special reference to the position of young students in their last few years at school.
The Divorce Of Mysticism From Theology—II
Authors: Vandenbroucke F.
Published: August 2024

The Rhenish school drew into its orbit many of the contemplatives of the time. They were not of the stature of their predecessors. The sole exception to this mediocrity was of course Bl. John Ruysbroeck (†1381). This great mystic of Groenandael depends in more than one point on Master Eckhart, but he has been careful not to leave any ambiguity on his ‘dualist’ thought, that is, on his doctrine of the distinction between God and the creature. The Book of Supreme Truth (Dat boec der hoechster waerheit) has expressly stated this: ‘no creature can be or become holy to the point of losing its created nature and becoming God'. Certain expressions of Book III of the Spiritual Nuptials (De gheestelyke brulocht) did however give rise to the criticisms of Gerson.

Ruysbroeck's mystical teaching explains, then, in what Measure man can arrive at union with God. At the beginning pf his career as a writer, he admitted the possibility of the intuitive vision of the divine essence.
Lenten Build-Up
Authors: Lynch Geoffrey
Published: August 2024

More than once it has been said that it is no use playing a harp to a jackass! I suppose we can see in such an assertion the obvious truth of the saying of St Thomas that whatever is received, is received according to the disposition of the receiver, and that's why the harpist ignores the jackass. Possibly too that's why the jackass does not bother to sqawk to the harpist! It seems to cut both ways.

The Tchaikovsky enthusiast might be quite ecstatic about a superb rendering of the Nutcracker Suite, but even he would not feel so enthusiastic about it if at the time he had a raging toothache. To the true appreciation of such music he could only hope to return when the toothache stopped and his disposition was better.
The Christian Mystery
Authors: Evans Illtud
Published: August 2024

It is the seraphim alone who can utter the name of God: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord Uod of Hosts; all the earth is full of his glory'. Before him no man can come face to face and live. The divine mystery is first of all God himself: infinite unutterable, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Yet it is God, whom no man has seen at any time, who has become man, manifesting in his human flesh the divinity that is hidden from our eyes. It is in Christ that the divine mystery is revealed. His suffering and death, his resurrection and his ascension, are not only truths to be believed: they mark the salvific work of Christ in which we are to be incorporated. For to me to live is Christ'. And the mystery of Christ is dispensed now by the Church that is his Body. Christ lives in the Church: redemption is re-enacted in the Church's worship, and pre-eminently in the sacrifice of the Mass. So it is that St Ambrose can say: In tuis te invenio sacramentis. We find Christ in the mysteries of the Church, the sacraments.
Sacerdos in Aeternum
Authors: Elwes Cary
Published: August 2024

Only recently the liturgy has recognised this title by a votive Mass in honour of the Priesthood of Christ. One of the oldest of his titles, its origins stretch back not only through the history of the Jewish people but through the history of the whole world.

Jesus our brother, Jesus the Man, the Everlasting Man, Jesus the representative of our race before the throne of God, his and our Father, stood and stands before that throne in the character of priest. Chosen by God he was, before ages began, a worthy representative, performing the supreme act of a priest: sacrifice.

The Jewish priesthood was a confined thing. A symbol, may be, of things to come, yet so much a symbol, so much a superficial creation, as not to merit, at least in its decrepitude, much honour. This fact of its passingness, its shadow-character, was even admitted in the Old Covenant.
The Penitent: Blessed Angela de Foligno
Authors: Graef H. C.
Published: August 2024

Blessed Angela Of Foligno, born about 1249, lived a very worldly and culpable life till she was about forty years jid. Then she was suddenly converted—in what way we do not know—became a tertiary of St Francis, and was apparently almost from the beginning favoured with high graces. From that time onwards her mystical life is richly documented owing to the care of her confessor, who wrote down in Latin what she dictated to him in the vernacular. Her life seems truly an illustration of St Bonaventure's saying that God takes not into account what a man has once been—his grace can raise even the greatest sinner to the heights of the mystical life, provided he responds to the divine call with sufficient generosity.

There is, however, a mark which ordinarily distinguishes the mystic who is a penitent from the one who has never lost his baptismal innocence.
Passive Purification — Temptation: (Ancren Riwle, Part 4)
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

Activity in the part played by the individual's choice of a rule of life, by his seeking of solitude and shunning the world, is necessary for the first stages of the spiritual life, but it is of less importance in the soul's growth and formation than the purification which is brought about by God himself. As soon as the soul has begun to give herself generously to the work of her salvation, God begins to co-operate by sending her temptations or trials which show up the weaknesses and exercise the virtues which are most needed. We have called these trials passive because they are provided or allowed by God and the Christian does not have to choose the way to progress. But the will must choose to co-operate actively with God's grace in striving to master self and overcome the attack. In this way the first trials of the spiritual life require a great deal of activity and consequently are not technically Passive Purification in the sense generally accepted by spiritual writers.
Management and Life Today
Authors: Consultant Business
Published: August 2024

If American businessmen are right in the way most of them live now, then all the wise of the ages, then all the wise of the ages, the prophets and the saints were fools. If the saints were not fools, then the businessmen must be.

Such is the stern, uncompromising beginning of a leading article in Fortune when the Chancellor of the Jewish Seminary writes on ‘The American Businessman's Moral Failure'. He realizes that, in an industrial society especially, the manager bears tremendous responsibility: his customs, morals and attitudes pervade the whole life of the country. The tragedy, as this article stresses, is that most managers have lost sight of the moral sources of economic strength and that no country can reach the height of economic success achieved by Britain or the United States without a philosophy and a faith more concerned with the human spirit than the comfort of the body.

Nearly two years ago, the British Institute of Management programmed for official discussion: ‘Are we failing to stress sufficiently in our selection and development of management the spiritual aspects?’ and within the last two months Belgian employers have discussed—for the first time—'Evangelical Poverty and the Christian Employer'.