bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Welcome to Life of the Spirit
Authors: Henry A. M.
Published: August 2024

It is not only out of affection for our English brethren that we have so willingly agreed to write the editorial of this first number of The Life of the Spirit. It is also an opportunity to put into Practice a dogma, which is dear to us and which We strive constantly to bring home to our readers in La Vie Spirituelle: the dogma of the Communion of Saints. As Fr Congar pointed out recently (Vie Intettectuelle, April, 1946), the fact that we belong to one Church, to a Communion of Saints, not only means that we have one head, or that we live, each on his own, by one faith expressed in the same acts of worship; it also means that between the parts of this whole which we make up, there exist relations of exchange, intercommunication, mutual help, etc… . Can we imagine a body in which the members, although linked to the same head, have no vital connexion with one another? Such a thing is unthinkable.
A Diurnal for November
Authors: Jarrett Bede
Published: August 2024

Death! What is death but home? ‘At the hour of death call me.’ That is the prayer that we have put on our lips by the Church. One of those old prayers, prayers that endure, solid prayers, no nonsense about it, one of those prayers that carries with it a fortifying power. People are sometimes frightened of talking of death; we shrink from death naturally, rightly, it is the breaking up of all we know, it is the putting away of familiar things, it is venturing into a strange country; about it there must be a certain strangeness and fear and sense of disaster—and yet, why? ‘At the hour of death call me.’ That is all death ever is—just a voice calling.
Vocal and Mental Prayer
Authors: Valentine Ferdinand
Published: August 2024

Prayer is the uplifting of the human personality to God. We not only uplift our minds by submission through Faith to his revealed truth, and our wills in acknowledgment of his divine sovreignty, but also our bodies. In prayer the whole man ‘empties himself’ in union with our Saviour to the glory of God. (Phil. 2; 7-11.)

‘But also our bodies’. ‘The antithesis of mind is body’, writes Father Vincent McNabb, and therefore the ‘antithesis to mental prayer should be bodily prayer. But by a figure of speech the whole range of non-mental prayer is called after its chief part, vocal prayer. It would be incorrect to think that the other forms of bodily prayer are neither greatly practised in the Church nor greatly valued. The Church, like her divine Spouse, “knows what is in man” too well to neglect any object or function whereby the impact of the world may be deadened and a new force added to the world of unseen realities.
All of A Piece
Authors: Barker Austin
Published: August 2024

To bridge then the abyss between human and divine, it is necessary to find within the created nature of man some kind oi ledge, or base, or some point d'appui, where the grace of God could alight, and there infuse life. Or, to vary the metaphor (and the use of metaphor is our only way of stating these truths), there must be within the creature a ground or soil in which God could plant a seed, an embryo of his own life of grace. In the first days of preaching the Gospel of Christ, his apostles made use of the metaphor of engrafting, a figure of speech as suggestive and accurate as human words could well be; and by this was intended the implanting of a new growth or life upon some different trunk, which was already in its own order alive.
Temptations Against The Church—II
Authors: de Lubac Henri
Published: August 2024

The difficulty becomes more acute in certain minds, and the pain more excruciating when it seems that despite all conceivable efforts at adaptation, fof reasons which render all initiative helpless, the action of the Church is far from being efficacious. Far from continually advancing, she seems to be slipping backwards. This is true even in lands where she appears to be reigning, even in places where her influence is acknowledged and supported, she does not make the gospel reign around her and the social order is not transformed by its principles. But should not a tree be judged by its fruits? Is not one, henceforth, justified in thinking that the Church will never be able to realise, more than in symbol, what others boast of bringing to actuality? Consequently, should not one transfer to these others the faith which he had once vowed to her?
Missionary to the Eskimos
Authors: Harper Thomas
Published: August 2024

Inuk is from several different points of view a work of remarkable interest. It is in the first place the story of the fifteen years spent by a French priest as a missionary among the Eskimos; it is in addition a commentary of considerable value on the habits and way of life of a remote and little-known people, and it is also a study in the propagation of the Faith under exceptionally unfavourable conditions.

Father Buliard, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, went to work among the ‘copper’ Eskimos (the least developed section of this very primitive race) in 1934 only twenty years after the murder of two of his predecessors in the same territory. In the intervening years the work of evangelising the copper Eskimos had been carried on by seven Oblate Fathers working two or three at a time under conditions of physical hardship which are probably unique even in the annals of the Church's foreign missions.
The Constitution on Secular Institutes and The Contemplative Life
Authors: Magrath Oswin
Published: August 2024

The new Apostolic Constitution, Provida Mater Ecclesia, which recognises what are called Secular Institutes (that is to say, Associations which, without public vows and without community life, dedicate themselves to the perfection of the spiritual life by means of the three evangelical counsels practised in the world) appears to envisage these Institutes as directed always to an apostolic purpose and the works of the active life. We would here take the opportunity to consider how this same Constitution, with very little adaptation, might be extended to include similar associations whose aim would be a purely contemplative life lived in the world, and in fact a revival in modern conditions of the hermits and anchoresses of a former age. While hermits have always existed in the Church (though they are perhaps fewer today than ever in her history), their mode of life in solitude has never been recognised as a form of the canonical state of perfection nor has it had her approval and guarantee as a safe way of life, unless it became to a large extent conventual.
Christ the Light of the World
Authors: Elwes Columba Cary
Published: August 2024

Today when the world is shattering into splinters like glass to the blast of a bomb, it seems difficult to assume or profess that Christ has been the Light of the World. So many have never heard of him, so many have been snatched from his loving care—so it seems—by the wilful action of militant anti-Christian people, so many self-styled followers of Jesus seem to be following their own desires and not at all treading the path to Calvary, beyond whose brow is illumination and light.

No one will deny that in his teaching and in his life our Blessed Lord and Master has been a shining Light; he taught a way that shines with holiness and love, which could, if followed, lead to peace and joy. Indeed those who truly followed Christ, and follow him today, have been and are at peace and in joy, with a peace and joy beyond all others, and recognisably so even to those who refuse to follow this same light.
Fashion in Saints: St John of the Cross
Authors: Murray Rosalind
Published: August 2024

No one but a saint should attempt to write about a saint. This is less evidently so in the case of active saints or martyrs, those whose external actions, whose whole lives are in themselves striking or edifying; then a biography can be of interest in the same way as it would be of any other outstanding personality; but of the contemplative saint, the mystic, there is often little to recount in the medium of time and place; very often they are monks or nuns whose entire lives have passed in uneventful routine of religious duties; the drama is interior and hidden.

It is true that St Teresa founded convents, that St John of the Cross was for a time in prison, that St Bernard and St Catherine intervened in the political crises of their times. But these are not the important things about them; these actions, however useful and successful, are accidental, and sorry to the true significance of their lives—the union of their souls with God in love, and even in the more specific sense, union through the interior way of contemplation.
St David and Wales
Authors: Evans Illtud
Published: August 2024

On St David’s Day Welshmen are apt to make speeches. For once in the year the virtue of speaking Welsh is generally conceded. One of the objections to giving much time to Welsh in the schools used to be its lack of ‘commercial value’: Welsh, it was argued reasonably enough, brought no dividends. John Capgrave, in his Legenda Nova Historiæ Angliæ, tells a story which suggests that Welsh may be very useful indeed:

‘A certain Welshman coming from the diocese of Menevia was captured by the Saracens, and was put in chains together with a German. The Welshman cried aloud day and night in his own language to St David, “Dewi, wared!”, which is to say, “David, come to my aid!” And, wonderful to relate, he suddenly found himself restored to his own country. Making this known to Gervase, at that time the bishop of those parts, he was taken into the dwelling of the latter on account of so notable a miracle. But his companion the German, considered to be privy to what had happened, was submitted to beatings and placed in even stricter custody.
Retreat and Return
Authors: Sharpe F. A.
Published: August 2024

A short time after my conversion to Christianity I had a desire to spend an informal retreat at a Trappist abbey some few hundred miles from my home. As my train sped through the natural wonderland that is New England in the springtime, my thoughts were mostly of a religious nature centring about life in an abbey, ideas gathered from several books that I had recently read.

As my train travelled along I became aware of a sense of doubleretreating, one physical and the other spiritual. My own city being far behind me, and the strange towns and villages going by my window as though framed in a movie film, gave me a strong sense of world-abandonment. I had a feeling that the world, and all that it means, was receding into the distant past. Not only was it receding physically, but spiritually too. I was en route to another kind of world, a world of peace and contentment within the confines of an abbey.
Religious Obedience: I. How far does it bind under sin?
Authors: Magrath Oswin
Published: August 2024

Religious obedience, as it has been developed during the centuries, especially in the West, is a special form of the virtue of obedience, determined by a religious rule, and by a vow. It therefore involves the normal elements of the virtue, and others arising from the vow. The chief elements of religious obedience are, therefore, the virtues of respect and obedience, religion and its act, devotion, the gift of piety, and social justice.
A Sermon for the Feast of all Saints
Authors: Venerable Bede
Published: August 2024

Today, dearly beloved we are celebrating the feast of all the saints in one joyous solemnity. Those saints whose fellowship is the delight of heaven; whose protection is the joy of earth; whose triumphs are the Church's crown; whose confessing of the Faith glows brighter in esteem, the braver their torments made it. For the harder the fight the greater the warriors’ glory; and many and varied are the sufferings which furnish the triumph of martyrdom. As the severity of their tortures increases, so too does the reward. Our Mother, the Catholic Church, extending far and wide throughout the world, was clearly taught by Christ Jesus, her Head, to fear neither insults, nor tortures, nor even death itself. Strengthened ever more and more, not by resistance but by endurance, she was the inspiration of the triumphal glory of all those whom the penalty of imprisonment brought together in a glorious army, with one and the same ardent courage to fight the battle.
The Purgative Way—Conclusion (Ancren Riwle, Parts V-VIII)
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

Purification continues to be an unpleasant part of life up to the very last breath, however advanced in holiness a man may be. The first stage in the way of perfection is called ‘purgative’ or purifying only because that ascetic activity is the predominant one at the beginning. A man has to struggle to abandon vice when he turns to God and sincerely tries to follow him. And so he purifies himself and opens his heart to the purifying action of God in the ways already suggested in previous articles. God himself also cultivates the soul as the farmer first cultivates the soil with plough and harrow. But at the point we have reached we come to the first outstanding transformation; the Christian soul is about to be converted once more and to enter upon a new form of life, fuller and more fruitful. He begins to enter another kind of asceticism, asceticism, a a dark night of the senses in which the spirit becomes far freer than before.
The Day of the Lord
Authors: Evans Illtud
Published: August 2024

Sunday, the day of joy, commemorates the cause of our joy and looks forward to its consummation in eternity. There can be no Christian life without Sunday, no Sunday without the Mass. Here is the setting of the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and its acceptance is the condition of any Christian recovery. Too often Sunday is confused with its secondary aspects: obligations, abstention from servile work, the merely natural rest in the cycle of time demanded by man's nature. But the first day of the week is the day of resurrection, far older as a feast than Easter. Its holiness enshrines the central mystery of Faith, and the Sabbath that marks the creative rest of God is transfigured now into the day of the new creation of grace.
On the Mystic Life of St Catherine of Siena
Authors: Graef H. C.
Published: August 2024

There are mystics who seem very remote from our turbulent times, those who retire into the desert or behind the walls of convents to live their lives of contemplation apart from the world and its cares. And there are others who carry their lives of union with God straight into the world, like a leaven spreading through the lump of indifference and sin. Of these is St Catherine of Siena, the dyer’s daughter, who made her way from the plain little room in her parents’ house to the palace of the popes in Avignon, who braved revolutionary crowds and wrote letters to cardinals and kings, and all through her life preserved her uninterrupted union with God in times perhaps as unsettled as our own. What was it that made such a life possible; what were the doctrines on which it was built? She herself has given us the answer in her Dialogue and Letters, which contain a wealth of mystical thought from which a few gleanings may serve to show whence she derived that extraordinary force that made her one of the most powerful women in history.
The Carmelite Third Order: Its Spirit and Apostolate
Authors: Sheppard Lancelot C.
Published: August 2024

‘Secular Tertiaries’, says Canon Law, ‘are those who in the world under the jurisdiction and the influence of a Religious Order try to tend to Christian perfection according to a rule adapted to their secular state of life and approved by the Apostolic See, It is necessary to bear this definition in mind in reading what follows.

The thirteenth century was a period of great expansion for the hermits who had come from Mount Carmel to Europe, but if in the same way as the Dominicans and Franciscans they attracted layfolk to them in an organized Third Order little evidence of it has survived. That some people went to live near Carmelite houses as recluses we know, but this was entirely separate from the Tertiary movement. On the other hand recently discovered documents have shown that there was some sort of fraternity at Venice in existence between the years 1280 and 1208 with regular monthly meetings, the saying of Office in common, the wearing of a habit and the rest. More research is needed to establish whether such a state of things was general.
Themes of the Bible
Authors: Hislop Ian
Published: August 2024

In recent years the study of the Scriptures has tended to be subordinated to other interests. These interests, often of great value in themselves, have begun to dictate the way in which the Scriptures were read and thus have provided various ways of looking at the Scriptures which amount to complete interpretations. We are all familiar with the ‘source book’ view of the Bible, with the Christianity-not-mysterious standpoint, and more recently with an apocalyptic interpretation which owes as much to a temperamental dislike of Hegel as it does to Scriptural sources. One grants that it is inevitable—since the Bible is addressed to all in every age—that each of us should respond to it in our own distinctive way. It is not suggested that each of the movements in modern Biblical study—in spite of their patent exaggeration—has not contributed something to our understanding of the Bible. What is suggested is that contemporary views of the Scriptures rest on theories about the Scriptures rather than on the Scriptures themselves, and that these theories often rest on premises which are not derived from the Scriptures, but are themselves the products of a non-Scriptural world view.
On Reading the Scriptures
Authors: Ginns Reginald
Published: August 2024

It is two years since the attention of readers of the Life of the Spirit was first drawn to the Jerusalem Bible—the new French translation of the scriptures, with an introduction and notes to each book, brought out in a series of beautifully printed fascicules by Les Editions du Cerf. Seven of these fascicules appeared in 1949 containing various books of the Old and New Testaments, five more in 1950, and a further eight in 1951 giving us Leviticus, Tobias, Proverbs, Wisdom, Isaias, Jonas, Matthew, I and II Timothy, and Titus. At this rate the series will soon be complete.

The more I see of this splendid and monumental work the more I hope to see it one day available in English for those who have no facility for French. Monumental seems to be the right word here. Not only is the work under the able direction of the École Biblique of Jerusalem (and the learned Dominicans there have allowed fifty years of preparatory research to precede the venturing on such a task as this), but those responsible for the undertaking have show a fine sense of scholarship by inviting from all sides the collaboration of biblical and literary experts, priests and laymen.
On Reading the Bible with One's Children
Authors: Gray Nicolette
Published: August 2024

We have read the Bible together (children of both sexes, now 8-17 years old) for about six years, every evening, in principal as part of a very informal sort of family prayers. We have read about a chapter at a time, reading always one of the gospels between Christmas and Easter, but otherwise usually reading straight on till we came to this annual, or some other natural or enforced break. So we have read from Genesis to the end of Job, Daniel, Jonas and parts of Isaiah, Ezechiel and Jeremiah, Machabees, the Acts, three Pauline epistles and the Apocalypse; some books once, most two or three times. One wonders what difference it makes to the minds of children growing up in the modern mental chaos, this ordinary Bible-reading’ which has in so many centuries been the ground of Christian education, but which is, I fancy, rather rare among Catholics today. Of course the children cannot tell one.
The 'Our Father' Considered
Authors: Cyprian St
Published: August 2024

(a)

The magnificent conception of the unity of the Church, of the faithful as constituting one body in Christ so closely knit together as to make isolated or solitary prayer out of the question. This is not a new nor original idea, but it is finely expressed here— St Cyprian was martyred in A.D. 258. (cf. No. viii.)

(b)

Following on this, the strong emphasis on concord and peace. So emphatic indeed is St Cyprian as to be led into the strange assertion that not even martyrdom can wipe out the sin of schism, (n. xxiv.)

(c)

Clear teaching on the value—the necessity even—of daily Holy Communion, (n. xviii.)

(d)

The interesting eulogy on Abel as the first martyr, thereby initiating the Passion of Christ, (n. xxiv.)

(e)

On the acknowledgement of sin as the prelude to the sense of it. This again is not new; St John (i: I: 9) says the same thing, but it is often overlooked, (n. xxii.)
My Lord and My God
Authors: Elwes Columba Cary
Published: August 2024

My Lord and My God: this is the summing up by St Thomas the doubter after he had seen the Christ risen from the dead. It is the challenge every man since has had to face: is Christ God?

The following is not going to be an exhaustive analysis of the evidence, nor is it to be written in an apologetic spirit. My aim is to state the position as I see it.

The Catholic Church today holds as its basic object of belief the fact that Christ is God. The Protestants wobble, some do believe, some do not. The Eastern Churches, until their contact with moderniam, held the Catholic faith. It was this foot—that Christ, is God and Man—that was worked out in the first six councils of the Church between the 4th and 6th centuries.

Nicaea: ‘We believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made.…’
The Unknown God
Authors: White Victor
Published: August 2024

We are told that the first question asked by the infant Thomas Aquinas was: ‘What is God?’ The pursuit of that question became his life's work; to it he gave all his energy and ability. Yet from the time of his earliest writings he had reached the conclusion that in this life he would never find the answer. ‘Nescimus', he will say—'We do not know.’ And he will repeat St John Damascene's ‘In Deo quid est, dicere impossible est —.'It is impossible to say of God what he is.’ St Thomas says this over and over again in his writings, from the earliest to the last. He insists not only that we do not know what God is—the essence, nature and ‘whatness’ of God—but also that we cannot know it: non possumus. He loves to repeat the assertion of the Mystical Theology of'the pseudo-Denys that the most perfect union with God is union with the utterly Unknown.
The Mystery of the Scriptures
Authors: Griffiths Bede
Published: August 2024

Christianity comes to us with the claim to be the revelation of a mystery. Our Lord in the gospel speaks of the ‘mystery of the Kingdom of God': and declares that this has been made known to his disciples (Mark 4, 11). St Paul speaks of the gospel as a ‘revelation of the mystery, which in ages past was kept secret, but now has been made manifest and through the writings of the prophets has by the command of the everlasting God been made known to all the nations’ (Rom. 1, 4). Elsewhere he speaks of ‘the mystery which has been hidden from former ages and generations, but now has been made manifest’ (Col. i, 26): and again of ‘publishing to the world the plan of the mystery, which had been kept hidden from the beginning of time in the all-creating mind of God’ (Eph. 3,6). What, then, are we to understand by this mystery, and in what does its revelation consist?
Orthodoxy and Religious Experience
Authors: Graham Aelred
Published: August 2024

It may be as well to begin, in the approved scholastic manner, by defining one's terms; or at least by delimiting the field of discussion-a very necessary step surely with a paper so ambiguously worded as this one! Orthodoxy, my Lord'. said Bishop Warburton, is my doxy-heterodoxy is another man's doxy'. No doubt we could improve on that and together hit upon a less question-begging statement of what we mean by ‘orthodoxy'. All the same, I must try not to confuse the issue by taking too much for granted. And what are we to understand by that indeterminate phrase ‘religious experience'? At the beginning of the century William James devoted a series of Gifford Lectures to The Varieties of Religious Experience-a work still being reprinted even in these days of paper shortage. James was, professedly an empiricist, with but a limited gift for philosophical generalisation, so that his collected data have both the interest and the tediousness of a case book'; but they serve to show how varied are the phenomena which have been placed-whether legitimately or not is another question!—in the category of ‘religious experience’.
'The Beloved'
Authors: Elwes Columba Cary
Published: August 2024

Since God is love, so too is Christ. But what is love? It is not enough to say that love is the giving of oneself as Christ our Lord did upon the cross for this act is but an outward expression of love and the same act could be not love but a crime. What then is love if God is love? It is not the urge we have for something we do not possess for God has all and more than all. He is infinity, and yet he loves.

Perhaps, to know its nature, we should begin with ourselves, for all our knowledge of God is known by analogy with ourselves. We have such things as qualities. He is these things. Whatever we obtain, that we obtain from him. He is that and more. He is knowledge; he is power, wisdom, prudence, peace, love. We have them as passing gifts but we know them best in our own souls.
The Little Sisters of Jesus
Authors: Burton Doris
Published: August 2024

Father De Foucauld, the modern Desert Father, has a world-wide renown and considerable interest has been shown in his Fraternities, the Little Brothers of Jesus, which have sprung, as it were, from his very life-blood. But less is heard of the Little Sisters of Jesus, who are in many ways quite different from the usual type of religious Congregation. They lead a contemplative life and yet it is lived not inside an enclosure but outside, amongst the materialistic workers of France as well as the nomadic Infidels of the Sahara. It is a life of poverty, labour and love; its purpose is to imitate as closely as possible that of Jesus the Carpenter in his workshop, Jesus the Lover of mankind who, in his public ministry, shared the life of the common people, his heart and soul overflowing with love for God and man.

Thus the desire of the Little Sisters is to live among the poor in such a way as to be identified with the poor. And their poverty is authentic for they have no secure background of dowry, income or organised charity; their Fraternities are maintained by the work of their hands.
Modern Psychology and the Function of Symbolism
Authors: White Victor
Published: August 2024

In his Summa Theologica (II-II, 81, 7) St Thomas Aquinas lays clown a principle which is fundamental for both the theory and the practice of divine worship: ‘We show reverence and honour to God not for his own sake—for he is himself full of glory, and to that glory nothing can be added by any creature: but for our own sake, in as much as by the very fact that we worship and honour God, our minds are put into subjection to him. And in this consists their own fulfilment, for everything attains its fulfilment by being subject to that which is above it: thus the body attains its fulfilment by being made alive by the soul, and the atmosphere by being lit up by the sun …’
The Prayer of Quiet
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

Young enthusiasts for the life of prayer cannot be too frequently reminded of the danger of applying directly to their own persons the doctrines they read about. As they grow older they often become so self-conscious or introspective that they cannot read the lives of saints or descriptions of mystic states without discovering parallels in their own interior lives. This is a weakness not confined to spiritual matters for we remember the hero of Three Men in a Boat who began reading a medical handbook and soon decided that he had the symptoms of all the diseases therein described except ‘housemaid's knee’. This is typical of those who read spiritual or physical medicine. It is necessary to repeat the warning against this form of introspection before beginning to discuss in detail the more passive forms of prayer and the higher states of the spiritual life.
The Sacred Heart
Authors: Atkinson Aelwin Tindal
Published: August 2024

The Feast of the Sacred Heart of our Lord sets before us clearly, and indeed vividly, the redemptive purpose and character of his incarnate life. The devotion itself finds its roots in the Middle Ages, in the writings of Saint Bernard for example, and later in those of Saint Catherine of Siena, as well as in one at least of the surviving works of the English mystical writers. The living tendrils of the devotion had already sought the light, when it received its final impetus from Saint Margaret Mary and Blessed Father Claude de la Colombière and was given full recognition by the establishment of the Feast as a part of the Liturgy of the Catholic Church.

The Feast itself takes the Sacred Heart of our Lord as the point of its adoration and as the object of our devotion; for the heart of Christ comprehends and draws within it all the love that animates the deep mystery of God's being, all the love that gave us his incarnate Son, all the love that raises us up by divine grace and quickens our own hearts in response.
Spiritual Responsibilities
Authors: Ple A.
Published: August 2024

I have been asked to speak to you about your spiritual responsibilities. Better than anyone you know the weight of them, and very specially at a time when the religious life is suSering from some disrepute, from reproaches, attacks, even from a recruiting crisis. The misunderstandings, the calumnies even, which circulate among people of the world, whether practising or not, are hardly worth considering. On the other hand, what does deserve attention is the opinion of those Christians, priasts or layfolk, who seem to be the active elements of what His Eminence Cardinal Suhard calls ‘the springtime of the Church'.

Increasingly nowadays priests, and holy priests of good judgment and experience, hesitate to recommend the religious life to their penitents. On their side, many young girls, apparently called to evangelical perfection, seek something other than the religious state, in so ‘far at least as they are able to know it.
The Eucharist and the Spirit of the Liturgy
Authors: Barden William
Published: August 2024

The christian liturgy is first and foremost an opusoperatum. It is something much bigger than the deed of any one of us and than our own personal devotion. It is something that is first of all done apart from us, that has its own worth and power independently of our effort. We enter into its mighty current and allow ourselves to be borne along by it; our part, the opus operantis, is to allow ourselves to be subject to its power, to be covered over with its glory.

It should not surprise us that the christian liturgy is thus primarily an opus operatum. The christian liturgy stands at the heart of the christian religion; and the christian religion is first and foremost an opus operatum. It is not just a technique of spiritual culture; many pagan religions are that. Nor is it just a way of worship; that too can be found outside the Church. No, it is first and foremost the mighty act of God who in Christ is reconciling man to himself, and giving us in Christ a mediator and a great high-priest.
Pilgrimage to Einsiedeln
Authors: Graef H. C.
Published: August 2024

The small local train from Lucerne winds its way up the wooded mountains to the famous medieval shrine of our Lady of Einsiedeln. There is no official pilgrimage going on at the moment, only a few peasants and hikers. The pilgrim from England looks out of the window at the grandiose lines of the mountains, with the Itigi in the distance, and wonders what he will find at this sanctuary of our Lady, once as renowned throughout Europe as Lourdes is today. Now the abbey comes into view; and at once the note is struck that will sound again and again during these thirty-six-hours; the note of contrast, of dissonance: the rich, overladen baroque building set within the wondrous simplicity of the Alpine scenery, a strange encounter between the pretentious architecture of self-centred Eenaissance man and the glory of the mountains made by the Lord.

At 4.15 next morning the pilgrim is woken up by a tremendous noise—the bells of Einsiedeln, as powerful as the surrounding mountains, calling all the neighbourhood to Mass.
St Rose in Lima: A Personal Eecoed
Authors: Sarmiento E.
Published: August 2024

There are three places in Lima intimately associated with St Rose: St Dominic's Church, where she is buried and where she habitually prayed during her lifetime; St Catherine's Convent, built on the site of the house where she died, where are. preserved many relics of her life; and the Church of St Rose, the first ever to be dedicated to her, built beside the site of her parents’ home and garden, which are still preserved. This church and adjoining garden and buildings contain all the most important places and objects associated with her.

The convent is an enclosed one, and the chapel installed in the room where S't Rose died, in which are preserved all the mementoes connected with her, is not open to the public. It is important, however, because it was there that the Spanish Dominican scholar, Fr Luis Alonso Getino, discovered in 1923 the sheets on which the saint had recorded, in a most original form, the mystical graces which she had been granted; this record completely alters our ideas of her character and mentality. I believe they are still unknown to the English reader.
Welche Auswirkungen hat Alkoholkonsum während der Entwöhnungsbehandlung bei Alkoholabhängigkeit auf den langfristigen Behandlungserfolg?
Authors: Friebe Sabine , Horstmann Kai Tobias , Lindenmeyer Johannes , Reuter Benedikt
Published: August 2024

Zusammenfassung: Fragestellung: Es wurde untersucht, ob Alkoholkonsum während einer abstinenzorientierten Entwöhnungsbehandlung einen Zusammenhang mit dem Abstinenzstatus und der beruflichen Teilhabe ein Jahr nach Behandlungsende aufweist. Außerdem wurde untersucht, ob der Zusammenhang durch andere bekannte Prädiktoren langfristiger Abstinenz beeinflusst wird und welche Merkmale von Patient_innen mit dem Alkoholkonsum während der Behandlung zusammenhängen. Methoden: In einer Stichprobe von 1.262 Patient_innen mit der Hauptdiagnose Alkoholabhängigkeit wurden Zusammenhänge zwischen Aufnahme-, Behandlungs- und Ein-Jahres-Katamnese-Daten einer stationärewn medizinischen Rehabilitationsbehandlung mittels logistischer Regression untersucht. Es wurden modifizierte Completers-only und Intention-to-treat Analysen entsprechend den Katamnesestandards DGSS1 und DGSS4 der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Suchtforschung und Suchttherapie durchgeführt. Ergebnisse: Es zeigte sich in beiden Berechnungsformen ein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen Alkoholkonsum während der Behandlung und Rückfall im Katamnesezeitraum, der auch bei Hinzunahme weiterer Variablen im Regressionsmodell bestehen blieb. Dagegen konnte zwischen Alkoholkonsum während der Behandlung und dem Erwerbsstatus ein Jahr später kein signifikanter Zusammenhang gefunden werden. Alkoholkonsum während der Behandlung trat umso häufiger auf je jünger die Patient_innen waren und je mehr Entzugsbehandlungen sie hatten. Schlussfolgerungen: Patient_innen mit Alkoholabhängigkeit, die bereits während einer stationären Entwöhnungsbehandlung Alkohol konsumieren, sind trotz Weiterbehandlung mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit im 1-Jahreskatamnesezeitraum rückfällig. Dagegen scheint der langfristige Erwerbsstatus der Patient_innen eher mit anderen Faktoren zusammenzuhängen als mit dem Alkoholkonsum während der Behandlung. Die Ergebnisse sprechen dafür, dass weiterer Forschungsbedarf zum Alkoholkonsum während einer stationären Entwöhnungsbehandlung besteht. Genauere Erkenntnisse könnten dazu beitragen, den Betroffenen langfristig eine erfolgreichere Bewältigung ihrer substanzbezogenen Störung zu ermöglichen.
Ecosystems Disturbance Recovery: What It Was or What It Could Have Been?
Authors: Dashti Hamid , Chen Min , Smith William K. , Zhao Kaiguang , Moore David J. P.
Published: August 2024

The time it takes for an ecosystem to recover from a disturbance is a key to environmental management. Conventionally, recovery is defined as a return to the pre‐disturbance state, assuming ecosystem stationarity. However, this view does not account for the impact of external forces like climate change, imposing non‐stationarity and trends. Alternatively, the counterfactual approach views recovery as the state the ecosystem would have achieved if the disturbance had not occurred, accounting for external forces. Here, we present a simple method to estimate the counterfactual recovery time. By implementing our method to the greening of the Arctic region, we showed that counterfactual greening recovery is twice as long as conventional recovery over the region. We argue that the well‐documented greening of the region acts as an external force, leading to such a large difference. We advocate for embracing the counterfactual definition of recovery, as it aligns with realistic decision‐making processes.
High‐Dimensional Covariance Estimation From a Small Number of Samples
Authors: Vishny David , Morzfeld Matthias , Gwirtz Kyle , Bach Eviatar , Dunbar Oliver R. A. , Hodyss Daniel
Published: August 2024

We synthesize knowledge from numerical weather prediction, inverse theory, and statistics to address the problem of estimating a high‐dimensional covariance matrix from a small number of samples. This problem is fundamental in statistics, machine learning/artificial intelligence, and in modern Earth science. We create several new adaptive methods for high‐dimensional covariance estimation, but one method, which we call Noise‐Informed Covariance Estimation (NICE), stands out because it has three important properties: (a) NICE is conceptually simple and computationally efficient; (b) NICE guarantees symmetric positive semi‐definite covariance estimates; and (c) NICE is largely tuning‐free. We illustrate the use of NICE on a large set of Earth science–inspired numerical examples, including cycling data assimilation, inversion of geophysical field data, and training of feed‐forward neural networks with time‐averaged data from a chaotic dynamical system. Our theory, heuristics and numerical tests suggest that NICE may indeed be a viable option for high‐dimensional covariance estimation in many Earth science problems.
Multispectral smart window: Dynamic light modulation and electromagnetic microwave shielding
Authors: Zhang Ruicong , Song Zicheng , Cao Wenxin , Gao Gang , Yang Lei , He Yurong , Han Jiecai , Zhang Zhibo , Wang Tianyu , Zhu Jiaqi
Published: August 2024

A novel multispectral smart window has been proposed, which features dynamic modulation of light transmittance and effective shielding against electromagnetic microwave radiation. This design integrates liquid crystal dynamic scattering and dye doping techniques, enabling the dual regulation of transmittance and scattering within a single-layer smart window. Additionally, the precise control of conductive film thickness ensures the attainment of robust microwave signal shielding. We present a theoretical model for ion movement in the presence of an alternating electric field, along with a novel approach to manipulate negative dielectric constant. The proposed model successfully enables a rapid transition between light transparent, absorbing and haze states, with an optimum drive frequency adjustable to approximately 300 Hz. Furthermore, the resistive design of the conductive layer effectively mitigates microwave radiation within the 2−18 GHz range. These findings offer an innovative perspective for future advancements in environmental construction.
A neurometabolic mechanism involving dmPFC/dACC lactate in physical effort-based decision-making
Authors: Clairis Nicolas , Barakat Arthur , Brochard Jules , Xin Lijing , Sandi Carmen
Published: August 2024

Motivation levels vary across individuals, yet the underlying mechanisms driving these differences remain elusive. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dmPFC/dACC) and the anterior insula (aIns) play crucial roles in effort-based decision-making. Here, we investigate the influence of lactate, a key metabolite involved in energy metabolism and signaling, on decisions involving both physical and mental effort, as well as its effects on neural activation. Using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and functional MRI in 63 participants, we find that higher lactate levels in the dmPFC/dACC are associated with reduced motivation for physical effort, a relationship mediated by neural activity within this region. Additionally, plasma and dmPFC/dACC lactate levels correlate, suggesting a systemic influence on brain metabolism. Supported by path analysis, our results highlight lactate’s role as a modulator of dmPFC/dACC activity, hinting at a neurometabolic mechanism that integrates both peripheral and central metabolic states with brain function in effort-based decision-making.
Replicability and generalizability in population psychiatric neuroimaging
Authors: Marek Scott , Laumann Timothy O.
Published: August 2024

Studies linking mental health with brain function in cross-sectional population-based association studies have historically relied on small, underpowered samples. Given the small effect sizes typical of such brain-wide associations, studies require samples into the thousands to achieve the statistical power necessary for replicability. Here, we detail how small sample sizes have hampered replicability and provide sample size targets given established association strength benchmarks. Critically, while replicability will improve with larger samples, it is not guaranteed that observed effects will meaningfully apply to target populations of interest (i.e., be generalizable). We discuss important considerations related to generalizability in psychiatric neuroimaging and provide an example of generalizability failure due to “shortcut learning” in brain-based predictions of mental health phenotypes. Shortcut learning is a phenomenon whereby machine learning models learn an association between the brain and an unmeasured construct (the shortcut), rather than the intended target of mental health. Given the complex nature of brain-behavior interactions, the future of epidemiological approaches to brain-based studies of mental health will require large, diverse samples with comprehensive assessment.
Beyond the incubator: applying a “one health” approach in the NICU
Authors: O’Reilly Daniel , Livada Alison , Steiner Laurie , Drew Richard J. , Mc Callion Naomi
Published: August 2024

A “one health” approach recognises that human health, animal health and planetary health are closely interlinked and that a transdisciplinary approach is required to fully understand and maintain global health. While, by necessity, Neonatal Intensive Care has traditionally focused on the acutely unwell newborn, the avoidance of long-term harm is core to many management decisions. The COVID 19 pandemic and climate crisis have brought into sharp relief the importance of a “one health” approach as part of long-term health promotion in the holistic care of neonates, who may survive to experience the burden of future environmental crises. This narrative review seeks to integrate what we know about “one health” issues in the neonatal intensive care unit, notably antimicrobial resistance and climate change, and suggest “everyday changes” which can be utilised by practitioners to minimise the impact of neonatal intensive care on these global health issues. Many of the changes suggested not only represent important improvements for planetary health but are also core to good neonatal practice.

Impact

Neonatal patients are likely to bear the burden of future environmental crises including pandemics and climate related disasters.

While the focus of intensive care practitioners is acute illness, awareness of “one health” problems are important for our smallest patients as part of preventing long-term harm.

High quality neonatal care can benefit both the planet and our patients.
BRCA-mutated breast cancer: the unmet need, challenges and therapeutic benefits of genetic testing
Authors: Arun Banu , Couch Fergus J. , Abraham Jean , Tung Nadine , Fasching Peter A.
Published: August 2024

Mutations in the BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 genes (BRCAm) increase the risk of developing breast cancer (BC) and are found in ~5% of unselected patients with the disease. BC resulting from a germline BRCAm (gBRCAm) has distinct clinical characteristics along with increased sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents such as poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors and platinum-based chemotherapies, and potentially decreased sensitivity to cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors. Given the evolving treatment landscape for gBRCAm BC in early and advanced disease settings, timely determination of gBRCAm status is fundamental to facilitate the most effective treatment strategy for patients. However, many patients with gBRCAm are not identified due to suboptimal referral rates and/or a low uptake of genetic testing. We discuss current evidence for a differential response to treatment in patients with gBRCAm in early and advanced BC settings, including outcomes with PARP inhibitors, platinum-based chemotherapies, and CDK4/6 inhibitors, as well as ongoing treatment innovations and the potential of these treatment approaches. Current genetic testing strategies are also examined, including the latest guidelines on who and when to test for gBRCAm, as well as challenges to testing and how these may be overcome.
Cervical cancer-produced neuromedin-B reprograms Schwann cells to initiate perineural invasion
Authors: Gao Xiaoyan , Wang Qi , Huang Ting , Xu Chen , Yang Xiaoming , Zhang Lin , Wang Jing , Yang Linlin , Zheng Xuan , Fan Qiong , Cao Dan , Li Lijuan , Ni Ting , Sun Xiao , Hou Jin , Wang Yudong
Published: August 2024

Perineural invasion (PNI) is a new approach of cervical cancer invasion and metastasis, involving the cross-talk between tumor and nerve. However, the initiating signals and cellular interaction mechanisms of PNI remain largely elusive. The nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy (NSRH) proposed to improve postoperative quality of life is only applicable to cervical cancer patients without PNI. Therefore, it is important to elucidate the underlying mechanisms initiating PNI, and suggest the effective biomarkers to predict PNI before NSRH surgery. Here, we found that PNI is the characteristic of advanced cervical cancer, and Schwann cells were the antecedent cells that initiating PNI. Further, neuropeptide neuromedin B (NMB) produced by cervical cancer cells was determined to induce PNI by reprogramming Schwann cells, including driving their morphological and transcriptional changes, promoting their proliferation and migration, and initiating PNI by secreting CCL2 and directing axon regeneration. Mechanistically, cervical cancer cells-produced NMB activated its receptor NMBR in Schwann cells, and opened the T-type calcium channels to stimulate Ca2+ influx through PKA signaling, which could be blocked by the inhibitor. Clinically, combined examination of serum NMB and CCL2 levels was suggested to effectively predict PNI in cervical cancer patients. Our data demonstrate that cervical cancer-produced NMB initiates the reprograming of Schwann cells, which then direct axon regeneration, thus causing PNI onset. The elevated serum NMB and CCL2 levels may be useful for the decision-making to nerve sparing during hysterectomy surgery of cervical cancer patients.