bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Protective factors for suicidal behaviour in adults self-reported as LGBTQ+: a study based on modulating variables
Authors: Sánchez-Teruel David , Pritam Singh Harpaljit Kaur , Sánchez-Barrera María Blasa , Robles-Bello María Auxiliadora
Published: August 2024

This study aims to identify factors that modulate resilience in LGBTQ + adults with a history of suicide attempts and reattempts, by hypothesising that positive mental health and various internal and external protective factors will predict suicide resilience in this population. 112 LGBTQ + Spanish individuals (60.7% self-identified as female, 34.8% as male and 4.5% did not identify their gender) aged 18–41 years with a history of self-harm or suicide attempts completed several questionnaires measuring variables such as self-efficacy, emotion regulation, social support, entrapment, anxiety, depression, positive mental health and resilience. In terms of the protective variables most predictive of resilience, social support, positive mental health and emotion regulation were found to be crucial and, to a lesser extent, self-efficacy expectations for coping with stressful or adverse situations. In addition, path analyses revealed distinct profiles of modulated categorical variables in LGTBQ + individuals who had attempted suicide once or who had attempted suicide two or more times. These findings highlight the importance of addressing protective factors, such as social support and positive mental health, in promoting resilience and reducing suicide risk among LGBTQ + individuals.
Human or robot? Exploring different avatar appearances to increase perceived security in shared automated vehicles
Authors: Schuß Martina , Pizzoni Luca , Riener Andreas
Published: August 2024

Shared Automated Vehicles (SAVs) promise to make automated mobility accessible to a wide range of people while reducing air pollution and improving traffic flow. In the future, these vehicles will operate with no human driver on board, which poses several challenges that might differ depending on the cultural context and make one-fits-all solutions demanding. A promising substitute for the driver could be Digital Companions (DCs), i.e. conversational agents presented on a screen inside the vehicles. We conducted interviews with Colombian participants and workshops with German and Korean participants and derived two design concepts of DCs as an alternative for the human driver on SAVs: a human-like and a robot-like. We compared these two concepts to a baseline without companion using a scenario-based online questionnaire with participants from Colombia (N = 57), Germany (N = 50), and Korea (N = 29) measuring anxiety, security, trust, risk, control, threat, and user experience. In comparison with the baseline, both DCs are statistically significantly perceived as more positively. While we found a preference for the human-like DC among all participants, this preference is higher among Colombians while Koreans show the highest openness towards the robot-like DC.
Early adaptive schemas, emotional regulation, and cognitive flexibility in eating disorders: subtype specific predictors of eating disorder symptoms using hierarchical linear regression
Authors: Mitchell J. S. , Huckstepp T. , Allen A. , Louis P. J. , Anijärv T. E. , Hermens D. F.
Published: August 2024

Purpose

Understanding how early adaptive schemas, cognitive flexibility, and emotional regulation influence eating disorder (ED) symptoms, and whether this differs across diagnostic subtypes is critical to optimising treatment. The current study investigated the relationship between these variables and ED symptomology in individuals self-reporting an ED diagnosis and healthy controls.

Methods

A dataset of 1576 online survey responses yielded subsamples for anorexia nervosa (n = 155), bulimia nervosa (n = 55), binge eating disorder (n = 33), other specified feeding or eating disorder (n = 93), and healthy participants (n = 505). The hierarchical linear regression analysis included Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire 6.0 Global Score as the dependent variable; Young Positive Schema Questionnaire, Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, and Cognitive Flexibility Inventory subscale scores as the independent variables; and demographic measures as the covariates.

Results

The number of significant predictors varied considerably by ED sub-group. Amongst the anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and healthy subsamples, the adaptive schema Self-Compassion and Realistic Expectations was associated with lower ED symptom severity. In comparison, age and body mass index were the strongest predictors for binge eating disorder, whilst the Expressive Suppression (a subscale of the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire) was the strongest predictor for other specified feeding or eating disorders.

Conclusion

Early adaptive schemas, cognitive flexibility, and emotional regulation vary across ED subtype, suggesting the need for tailored treatment that disrupts the self-reinforcing cycle of ED psychopathology. Future research investigating how early adaptive schemas may predict or be associated with treatment response across diagnostic subtypes is needed.

Level of evidence: Level IV, evidence obtained from multiple time-series with or without the intervention, such as case studies.
Trends in vervet monkey admissions to a wildlife rehabilitation centre: a reflection of human-wildlife conflict in an urban-forest mosaic landscape
Authors: Pillay Kerushka R. , Streicher Jarryd P. , Downs Colleen T.
Published: August 2024

Despite the common destructive effects of urbanisation on biodiversity assemblages, certain species thrive in urban environments. One mammalian species that has persisted in the urban-forest mosaic landscape is the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus). It is a common resident primate in Durban, eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, with frequent contact with humans and domestic wildlife. Due to their adaptability in using human-altered landscapes, the interactions between humans and vervet monkeys have increased and are often negative. Our study determined trends in the admission cases of vervet monkeys to a Durban wildlife rehabilitation centre and assessed the main factors contributing to these admissions to mitigate human-vervet monkey conflict. Our analyses were conducted on recorded admission data for vervet monkeys at a wildlife rehabilitation centre from 2011 to 2018. Members of the public (90.0%) mostly reported vervet cases, with admissions mostly recorded from the central district (46.8%) of the municipality. The number of admitted vervet monkeys increased significantly over the years and months, with a mean (± SE) of 127.3 ± 21.34 and 84.8 ± 5.37, respectively. Only 34.3% of vervet monkeys were alive at the end of the admission process from the 83.7% that were admitted alive at the rehabilitation centre. The high number of deaths resulted from anthropogenic activities, primarily motor vehicle strikes (30.8%) and domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) attacks (13.9%). We modelled survivability for vervet monkeys, and our results showed that season, age category, and the cause of admission were all significant factors influencing survival after admission. The sex of vervet monkeys had no significant effects on survivability after admission to the rehabilitation centre. We suggest that wildlife rehabilitation centres in priority areas use these findings in education to improve human coexistence with vervet monkeys. The trends also serve as a foundation for human-vervet conflict resolution programmes. The advantages of publishing records from rehabilitation centres are that they will raise awareness of the challenges posed by vervet monkeys in urban environments, where they are sometimes perceived as a nuisance because of anthropogenic influences in the urban mosaic landscape.
Optical trapping-induced crystallization promoted by gold and silicon nanoparticles
Authors: Su Hao-Tse , Liu Shao-Yuan , Fujii Minoru , Sugimoto Hiroshi , Tanaka Yoshito Y. , Sugiyama Teruki
Published: August 2024

This study investigates the promotion of sodium chlorate (NaClO3) crystallization through optical trapping, enhanced by the addition of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs). Using a focused laser beam at the air–solution interface of a saturated NaClO3 solution with AuNPs or SiNPs, the aggregates of these particles were formed at the laser focus, the nucleation and growth of metastable NaClO3 (m-NaClO3) crystals were induced. Continued laser irradiation caused these m-NaClO3 crystals to undergo repeated cycles of growth and dissolution, eventually transitioning to a stable crystal form. Our comparative analysis showed that AuNPs, due to their significant heating due to higher photon absorption efficiency, caused more pronounced size fluctuations in m-NaClO3 crystals compared to the stable behavior observed with SiNPs. Interestingly, the maximum diameter of the m-NaClO3 crystals that appeared during the size fluctuation step was consistent, regardless of nanoparticle type, concentration, or size. The crystallization process was also promoted by using polystyrene nanoparticles, which have minimal heating and electric field enhancement, suggesting that the reduction in activation energy for nucleation at the particle surface is a key factor. These findings provide critical insights into the mechanisms of laser-induced crystallization, emphasizing the roles of plasmonic heating, particle surfaces, and optical forces.

Graphical abstract
Room-temperature mL-to-μL quantitative liquid concentration device for cyclone flow
Authors: Tazawa Hidekatsu , Mawatari Kazuma
Published: August 2024

Highly sensitive quantitative analysis of liquids is required in various fields. Analytical instruments and devices such as chromatography, spectroscopic analysis, DNA sequencers, immunoassay, mass spectrometry, and microfluidic devices are utilized for this purpose. Typically, the sample volume is at the milliliter scale, while the analysis volume is at the microliter scale. Consequently, most of the sample is discarded. Therefore, a universal volume interface is required to quantitatively concentrate samples from milliliter to microliter volume. This study introduces a liquid quantitative function to the cyclone concentration method using a millimeter-scale channel, which is highly suitable for controlling liquids at the microliter scale due to its high fluidic resistance against cyclone flow. This method enables the effective control of liquid concentration by cyclone flow. The optimum channel structure is investigated, and a 33-fold concentration of aqueous solutions is demonstrated. Finally, the concentration device is applied to measure molybdenum ions in a river.

Graphical abstract
Liturgy and Literary Tradition
Authors: Wicker Brian
Published: August 2024

In this paper I want first of all to examine what the liturgy essentially (or rather existentially) is: and then, having made my view of that question clear I want to make some brief suggestions as to how this conception of the liturgy might be grasped by undergraduates taking a combined honours course in theology and English literature. I am going to discuss this particular combination of subjects, partly because it is explicitly mentioned by Laurence Bright in his paper in the symposium, but also because I think it is a combination particularly interesting in itself. What I have to say must not be construed as constituting a syllabus for a course let alone as a substitute for the teaching of the history of liturgical forms and their relation to the theological preoccupations of their periods.
Holy, Holy, Holy
Authors: Ernst Cornelius
Published: August 2024

There was life outside the Church. There was much that the Church did not include. He thought of God, and of the whole blue rotunda of the day. That was something great and free. He thought of the ruins of the Grecian worship, and it seemed, a temple was never perfectly a temple, till it was ruined and mixed up with the winds and the sky and the herbs. (D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, Phoenix edn., p. 203).
A Survey of Biblical Theology
Authors: Bourke Joseph
Published: August 2024

Anyone who undertakes seriously to interpret the scriptures must be constantly aware that behind the words confronting him on the Bible page lie three distinct, though closely inter-connected realities: first, the historical objects and events about which the biblical authors are speaking, second the biblical authors themselves, and the communities which they may be supposed to have been addressing in all the complexities of their historical environment, third the actual concepts and words in which the biblical authors formulate the divine meaning which they have perceived.
The Body of Christ
Authors: Gregory T. S.
Published: August 2024

A body is a terrestrial thing. It exists in time. It has a shape and a locus. The Christos is the Lord's anointed. He is a being divinely ordained to realize the divine purpose, whatever that may be. The body of the Christ is, therefore (whatever else it be) a temporal and terrestrial entity with a shape and locus ordained to realise the divine purpose.

It has been clear for a long time, indeed I think it was always obvious that a book, though it be the Bible, was never adequate means to realize the divine purpose. The Torah would not be the Torah without a community to believe and practise it. If the Christos has a body, this body must be not merely a system of utterances, but at least a community of people and things, a community that embodies and is chosen or ordained to embody the divine purpose fulfilled by the Christos. The body of Christ is the economy, the ecclesia of Christ.
The Person and the Place—VIII: The Grail Castle
Authors: Webb Geoffrey
Published: August 2024

The Middle Ages, says Emile Male, glorified what they most admired—the courage of a hero, joined to the abnegation of a monk. As a typical instance of this feeling, he describes a monument which existed in the church of Saint Faron at Meaux until the Revolution the tomb of Ogier and Benedict. These two, who were in fact monks of Saint Faron, were buried in the sanctuary at Meaux where they excited the curiosity of the faithful who came, mainly from Paris, venerate the relics of the patron saint. During the course of the eleven century the custodians of the place tended more and more, for the benefit of their visitors, to embellish the identity of these two, until it was eventually taken for granted that they must be the very Ogier and Benedict of the Song of Roland.
Religious Instruction: An Experiment
Authors: Ingram Christopher
Published: August 2024

The purpose of this article is to describe a course of religious instruction I have been trying out with boys from seven to twelve years old who attend non-catholic schools, and who visit me once a week. It seemed worth while to make it more widely known in this way, in case others, might like to make use of it in some way, or at least to suggest ways of improving it.
Dom John Chapman's Spiritual Letters
Authors: Walter Julian
Published: August 2024

It is cruel to analyse a favourite spiritual book: ‘Philosophy will clip an angels wings’. Nevertheless last summer I tried the experiment on boot Chapman's spiritual letters. I had long been dissatisfied with Dom Roger Hudleston's presentation. He arranged the letters according correspondents, distinguished by quaint anonymous titles—‘To one living in the world’, ‘To a literary man’; he separated the letters to ‘lay folk from those to religious, and he put last of all the ‘Letters to a Jesuit’ which in fact, begin first. As a result the reader, having to jump backwards and forwards in time, is reminded of Eyeless in Gaza.
Faith Grows
Authors: Edwards Mary
Published: August 2024

In some Company you can feel very much the odd man out if you can't tell your conversion story. I can't: I'm a ‘cradle Catholic’. At least, until recently I thought I couldn't. But after all, faith is man's response to God's action in history, and history includes us. (Is this why it's ‘bunk’?).

‘What do you ask of the Church of God?’ ‘Faith’, said my godmother for me. My convert friends said it for themselves. And yet in a sense, in a very important sense, otherwise the priest would never have let them get that far, they already had faith. To ask for faith is an act of faith.
Starting Theology
Authors: Markus R. A.
Published: August 2024

The variety of ways in which the study of theology may be incorporated into the ‘General B.A.’ degree, as it is called in most of our universities, is great. The structure of this degree is itself by no means uniform, and many universities are engaged in a revaluation or re-organisation of general studies. All this makes the drawing-up of blue-prints unrelated to particular circumstances an academic exercise without academic relevance. The ‘Proposals’, however, are primarily a statement principles; and it is as well to clarify principles independently, and before the onset, of the inevitable complications of their being put into practice.
Vatican II: Impressions of a Struggle of Minds
Authors: Schillebeeckx E.
Published: August 2024

The way in which the first phase of the second Vatican Council developed has surpassed the most optimistic expectations. It is undoubtedly true that constitutionally nothing has been decided, nor has a single conciliar document been definitively approved. Denzinger is as yet unable to adopt anything from this Council. And yet I feel that it has already passed the turning-point.
A Theology of Glory
Authors: Swanston Hamish
Published: August 2024

In the introduction to his admirable translation of Karl Rahner's Schriften zur Theologie, I, Fr Cornelius Ernst begins by pointing out that Rahner is a theologian totally competent in the study of the past. Editor of Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum, and co-editor of the Lexicon fur Theologie und Kirche, Rahner has obvious qualifications in the presentation of what has so far been achieved in theology. But he is more than an historian. He works in the present, the studies collected here are concerned with matters of moment, not with past disputes. He works in the present for the future when we shall know all that has already been revealed.
Women in the Church
Authors: Wangermann Elisabeth
Published: August 2024

There is a characteristic attitude towards women in the Church which expresses itself in certain customs and regulations. I have tried to find out something about the assumptions behind this attitude and have thought it worth reporting and commenting on what I found, because I suspect that much of it will be as surprising to others as it was to me.

The customs which set apart the sexes in the Church begin to impinge very early in life. The little girl sees her brothers having fun serving on the altar, initiated and ‘in the know’, while she has to stay inner pew, bored, an outsider. The boys usually have precedence at first communion and confirmation, and even on her wedding day, the only day in her life when a woman is allowed in the sanctuary, she comes second throughout the ceremony.
Contemplation and Contemplative Life
Authors: Harrison James
Published: August 2024

BY contemplation here I am not referring to any merely natural operation of the intellect, however sublime it may be, but to an operation much more elusive, namely, supernatural contemplation, called also mysticism. It may be defined as an immediate or experimental knowledge of God. Our ordinary knowledge of God, of his existence and. of his nature, comes to us not immediately but only mediately, that is through intellectual concepts or ideas in the mind derived from reason and faith. By our natural reason it is possible to know of God's existence and to some extent his attributes, but only by faith can “we know his inner nature, for example, his threefold personality. But mysticism, or mystical knowledge of God which is supernatural contemplation, is something quite different. This is immediate knowledge of God and experience of his presence through union with him by charity.
St Hyacinth Mariscotti
Authors: P.C.C.
Published: August 2024

ST HYACINTH MARISCOTTI could be called the patron of back-sliders or the saint of the second chance. A study of her life would do much to ‘confirm the weak knees’ of all those of us who are so prone to say, ‘Sanctity is not for me'. Born at Vignarello in the papal states, of a noble and wealthy family, in the early seventeenth century, young Clarice Mariscotti was sent to Viterbo to be educated in the Franciscan convent. She was not remarkable for her piety and probably suffered from having a sister who was a nun in the same convent. Doubtless the sister also suffered, and one can readily imagine that the friction between the reproachful piety of the one and the misdemeanours of the other may have had unfortunate repercussions on a difficult temperament, giving rise to Clarice's later behaviour.
The Sense of Mystery
Authors: P.M.
Published: August 2024

There are many people today who condemn the efforts that are being made to make the liturgy more intelligible. The Mass and the Sacraments, they say, are mysteries; it is only right that they should be unintelligible. All this concentration on the instructive power of the liturgy is a false emphasis; the ceremonies of the liturgy are not meant to teach, they are meant to convey a feeling of reverential awe for the great mysteries of our salvation which are beyond the power of our understanding. Why this desire to have everything pat and plain, to hear and understand all the words of the Mass? The Church uses mysterious rites and a language that is not easily understood because the liturgy expresses mysteries that cannot be understood. A hundred years ago as great a scholar as Dom Guerangcr could write: ‘The Church … proclaims her victorious and immutable doctrine in the language of the people who hear her; but her mission is not only to instruct this people.
Unity and the Eastern Churches
Authors: Georgiadis Helle
Published: August 2024

During these last decades the problem of Christian disunity has imposed itself on the conscience of Christians as an immediate challenge and there have been many attempts to find a solution. All Christians, whatever their ecclesiastical allegiance, affirm belief in ‘one, holy, cathohc and apostolic Church', and although no mark of the Church could exist independently of the others, it is natural to seek the answer to the problem raised by Christian disunity first in terms of the note of uniqueness.

We could divide Christians into two groups: those who believe that the note of one-ness is already fully exemplified in their own Church, as is the case with Catholics and with Orthodox Christians; and those who represent various Protestafant traditions and who, while affirming belief in ‘one Church', also believe that the unity of the Church has to be re-asserted and made manifest because the visible unity has been destroyed by divisions among Christians which have come about since the first centuries A.D.
Spirituality of the Judaean Desert III: Amos of Tekoa
Authors: Potter Roland
Published: August 2024

The term ‘desert’ (midbar) in the Bible will often mislead people in our western countries, for what is meant by the term is, as often as not, something like uncultivated pasture-land or steppe-land. The root debar in cognate languages means ‘to drive to pasture', and the midbar is the zone between cultivable land and absolute desert, a zone to which cattle could be and still are driven to gather what food they can. Such a ‘desert’ does in fact respond to beneficent rain, and sometimes appears, for a short time at least, quite green. The psalmist knew how the desert could be green, and sang of how ‘the stream of plenty flows; flows through the desert pastures, till all the hillsides are clad’ (Ps. lxv, 13). And Job tells of the almighty power of God who has ‘carved a channel for the tempestuous rain, a vent jor the echoing thunderstorm, that they should fall on some lonely desert where foot of man never trod, water those trackless Wastes, and make the green grass spring …’ (Job xxxviii, 26).
The English Spirit
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: August 2024

If we were to consider the connection between spirituality and art in view of our modern situation we might easily conclude that there is little to tie them together. The world is full of obviously good Christians, devout living, earnest and regular at prayer; while the churches in which they pray are cluttered with hideous objects of piety and resound to the most dismal hymns. Bad sculpture and painting and bad music are associated with devout Christian folk. But it is impossible for man to see his own age in true perspective; we can only guess at what is growing or declining in our own life-times. But when we look back in history patterns begin to stand out before us in clearer outlines. And if we look back at our own English scene we can see examples of spiritual revival and decline and can examine the various arts that accompanied these phases. Thus in the age of Dunstan there was a great revival in the Christian spirit of the country, and in fact this can be detected in its contemporary art.
Obedience and Community
Authors: John Henry St
Published: August 2024

I should like you to look upon this paper as the basis of a symposium. What I want to do is to put forward certain fundamental principles which lie at the very heart of our Dominican vocation, and to draw from them one or two seminal ideas, ideas which like seeds will grow and fructify in the mind and, so produce fruit in the way we live our day-to-day Dominican life. I want to do this moreover with a special eye on your office as superiors. Superiors hold a key place in community life. They are fathers and mothers of the family, and like good fathers and mothers their chief function is to foster and develop the family spirit, which is the chief educative factor in the religious community, as it is in the secular home.
‘Soul’ in the Bible
Authors: Hill Edmund
Published: August 2024

‘Soul’ has come to be almost exclusively a religious word in modern languages, like ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ and ‘prayer’. The soul is something which people beheve in or do not believe in, like God. It is thought of as an important but highly mysterious part of a human being, which it is the aim of the Christian religion to save. We talk about the salvation of souls, but not of bodies or minds or even of people, because ‘bodies’, ‘minds', and ‘people’ are profane every-day concepts shared by believers and unbelievers alike. No one would dream of saying they believed or did not beheve in the body, the mind, or people, because they are all more or less evident phenomena of which we all have experience. Soul is not an evident phenomenon, but a mysterious hypothesis which rehgious people believe in and others often do not.
Music
Authors: Varcoe William
Published: August 2024

ONE of the most enterprising ventures in the gramophonerecord market of recent months has been the issue of several notable items from the German catalogue of Cantate, available through the firm of Novello, 160 Wardour St, W.i. These records provide authentic and often outstanding performances of organ and choral music ancient and modern.

Robert Kobler's account of some preludes on the chorale Da Jesus an dem Kreuze Stand by Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654.) is mainly for the specialist and is played on the eighteenth-century organ at Herford Minster. The sleeve-jacket accompanying the disc (T71880F) carries a specification of the instrument. This is music not usually included in the programmes of British players and, on this account alone, deserves consideration.

Heinz Wunderlich's persuasive account of Bach's D Minor Trio- Sonata (T71876F which, like the Kobler record, is a 45-r.p.m., 7-inch), will be greeted by all students and teachers.
Living Wisdom
Authors: Meath Gerard
Published: August 2024

In attempting to teach religion to sixth-formers in a live fashion one becomes aware of a temptation to go to extremes. We may be so much aware of the needs the boy will experience within a few years of leaving school and the tests to which his faith will be put that we bow to necessity and equip him with a set of slick answers to all the questions with very little understanding of the underlying theological principles; we teach him apologetics rather than theology. On the other hand we may be so aware of the limitations of the ready-made answer that we embark on a long-term policy of teaching theology which of its nature can never be finished in a school life and which, much more disastrous, might easily be confined to a speculative study of principles with little linking up with personal and contemporary problems.
Towards an Objective Spiritual Life
Authors: Deman Thomas
Published: August 2024

With the theological virtues, we move away from ourselves to attain the highest obj ect set before human action. Wonderful as it seems, God becomes our object. No one calls in question the fact that the theological virtues are preeminent and people certainly do not dream of denying that they have a part to play in the spiritual life. It is doubtful, however, whether they are cultivated with the care they deserve and whether they are actually directed towards their object. Let us consider this direction which it is important they should take in practice.

Among the different virtues, faith bears a strongly marked objective character. Its purpose is to attach the mind to the truths God has revealed. These truths in no sense derive from us and are certainly not the fruit of our meditations. God has revealed them and they have entered into us through the medium of hearing.
Vocations and Their Recognition—I
Authors: Ryan Columba
Published: August 2024

How often people put, rather anxiously, the question: How do I know if I have a vocation? It is not easy to answer, and part of their anxiety comes from the fact that, as likely as not, they are looking for a cut-and-dried answer that can seldom, in the nature of the case, be given. The following of a vocation is a venture of faith. But it still remains true that the venture ought to be made with prudence. My aim in these articles is to examine first what a vocation is, and secondly what kind of answer can be given to the question just put. It is, after all, a question that many, besides those who feel themselves drawn to consecrate their lives to the service of God, may be called upon to face. Parents and priests and teachers may have to help solve it. And experience shows that all too often they have but the vaguest idea how to set about it.
Justice in Israel: Key to the Covenant
Authors: R. S.
Published: August 2024

Justice or righteousness (they translate the same Hebrew word: tsedek) is that by which Israel lives, that by which it maintains its existence as Yahweh's chosen people. To act righteously, or justly, is to act in such a way as to maintain the covenant.

When Yahweh intervened to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, he set them apart from all other nations; and on Mount Sinai he bound them to himself by a perpetual contract. They became a nation set apart for Yahweh, who although Lord of all the world freely chose them for his own through no merit of theirs. By this act Yahweh revealed his righteousness to Israel, and even imposed it on them too through the law, as the charter of the covenant. So the Hebrew law is quite unlike the law of other peoples: it is entirely theological, and is not the expression of the will of the people or of their ruler.
Justice in the Teaching of St Thomas
Authors: Rigney Matthew
Published: August 2024

The purpose of this article is to see with St Thomas some aspects of the moral movement of man towards his creator, those aspects namely that have to do with his teliow travellers on the way to God, man's positive contribution to human social living. And this human social life, being human, should be rational; yet, as St Francis of Sales observes in his Introduction to the Devout Life, seldom do we meet rational animals who are reasonable! There is so much injustice in the world, in spite of reason's dictating to us that the good things of this world should be evenly distributed according to each one's need and place in society. Millions of our fellow men struggle to keep alive at bare subsistance level. The more one studies history, the more one sees it as continual warfare, cynics would say a losing battle, to obtain justice.
St Benedict Joseph Labre
Authors: P. C. C.
Published: August 2024

On Wednesday in Holy Week 1783, an emaciated, tattered ragbag of a young beggar-man collapsed on the steps of Sta Maria dei Monti where he had attended mass. At eight o'clock that night he was dead and with the morning light a scrabble of urchins went shouting in the gutters of Rome, ‘E tnorte il santo!'. The fiercely enthusiastic scenes and circumstances surrounding his death seemed prescient of an early official recognition of his sanctity. No doubt the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars delayed this and he was beatified in May 1860 and canonized in December 1883.

It is more than unfortunate that his name has become synonymous with eccentricity, exaggeration and squalor. Perhaps this most humble of men, for whom none had greater contempt than he had for himself, would prefer it that way. He is in the splendour of the saints.
Having Our Faculties
Authors: Thomas Gilby
Published: August 2024

Keep the good thing committed to thy trust by the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in us, so St Paul brings out two sides of a relationship. First, ourselves who are told to keep the good thing, literally the deposit granted to us that we ourselves ftiay render it to God; second, the indwelling Spirit, the Gift himself present in person. Correspondingly we may consider a double movement in prayer, the ascent of the mind and heart to god, which is what we do from grace and the virtue of religion, and the coming down of the Spirit who breathes through us so that we are rather acted upon than acting, who himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God. It is with the first we are engaged in this article, reserving the second until later.
The Spirit in the World–I
Authors: Walsh R. P.
Published: August 2024

A lay organization whose major work is the giving of closed retreats is exceptional enough to be interesting. Such is the Banyakaroli movement to be found in parts of Tanganyika. This organization has changed somewhat during its existence but only in the sense that as a need was found the movement adapted itself to meet it.

The story began in 1941 when a Father Heise was at Kashozi, Tanganyika. This priest examined the local Catholic Action organization critically and decided that it had no influence in the parish, that its members were all getting on in years, their zeal had diminished and they were unable to adapt themselves to the problems of the younger generation. Considering that a complete renewal was necessary Father Heise selected three young married men to be the core of a new movement and sent them out to the villages to gain recruits. The nucleus were trained through a monthly day of recollection, observed in complete silence and followed by an instruction.
Our Lady in Scripture: I
Authors: Weatherhead Benet
Published: August 2024

If you live by mountains or the sea your life is moulded by them. It may be that they are out of sight and that it is only in the lie of the land, in a wind that blows over you cold from the snows or warm and salty from the sea that you are made consciously aware of them; perhaps you remember from time to time to make an expedition to refresh your memory of the way they look. But in some way or another they are a presence in your life. Although we’ are not always aware of her, our Lady is always present to the Church, is present in the life of each one of us; when we are aware of her it is not by the senses of the body but by the spiritual sense of faith.
Has Man a Spiritual Life?
Authors: Holdsworth Philip
Published: August 2024

In talk and writing about religion the expression ‘the spiritual life’ is well known. It is assumed not only to have meaning but to mean something very important. It will not, therefore, be out of place to examine these assumptions in a review that is called LIFE OF THE SPIRIT, a title which has affinity, if not identity, with the expression in question. ‘The spiritual life', ‘the life of the spirit', how shall we distinguish them? Perhaps any distinction there may be will emerge later.

The spiritual life is considered to be something that a religious man should seriously engage himself in, and an important part of it for him will be his ‘spiritual exercises', notably assistance at the sacrifice and reception of the sacraments, but also prayer, public and private, vocal and silent, and ‘spiritual reading'. To settle on the measure and manner of these, he will sometimes, even regularly, have recourse to a ‘spiritual director'.
Vocations and their Recognition—II
Authors: Columba Ryan
Published: August 2024

It has been seen in the previous article that there are three aspects under which we may approach the analysis of a vocation. Within the vocation itself there is the divine call and the ecclesiastical call. External to it, but as its necessary condition, there are the appropriate gifts and qualities in the recipient. We have seen that the divine call is a grace communicated to the soul. From the side of God we have seen that this grace is offered not as a matter of precept, but of counsel, to resist it, or rather to fail to receive it, is not necessarily sinful since its acceptance is left to our free, prudential choice; but this is not to say that it may not be sinful. For there are other sins than those of formal disobedience to a precept; there is the sin of rashness, against prudence. And failure to accept the grace offerered may be just such a sin.
The Battle Against Present-Day Restlessness
Authors: Hillig Franz
Published: August 2024

Noise and haste brand our times….’ No novel statement, this: we have all heard it in some form or other, and most people, at least in the Western world, surely agree. We are slaves—the very watch on our wrist a sign of servitude—we have ‘no time', ‘no rest'; ‘Angina Temporis’ (as Dr Bramesfeld terms it) is a common disease. It is a fact that, even if a few free days do come our way, we are no longer caplable of relaxing; restless activity holds us entirely in its power. Man, his nerves tense and his mind fuddled, finds no shelter of peace awaiting him when he is ejected nightly from office or factory; wearily he reaches home, only to plunge himself into so-called amusements. His money is taken from him and in return he becomes momentarily intoxicated with unhealthy, forced excitment, but there is neither peace nor lasting satisfaction in it.
On Reading The Bible: I
Authors: Campbell Duncan
Published: August 2024

The Bible is a book, or rather the book above all others, to which we feel that we need no introduction. It is found lying everywhere; we all know of it; and still more have so many of its phrases and personalities in our everyday talk, that we can be quite surprised to find they are ‘from the and begin to wonder just how much we do take from it.

But perhaps it is unfortunate that we have no introduction; for the Bible is not only well known and quoted, as Shakespeare's works are among English-speaking people; but has a special place in our minds, unlike any other book. It is venerated, or ridiculed; held up, for respect or derision; and it has that position because of what is said about it. The Bible, it is said, is the Word of God.
Essays in Christian Unity
Authors: Curtis Geoffrey
Published: August 2024

Those who have laboured and prayed specially for Christian Unity will read, reread, ponder and treasure this book with great gratitude. We pray that it will be very widely read and studied. Such writing has been awaited by Anglicans for at least a century: we could hardly expect it before when the nation which we represented was still persecuting the Church of Rome in our land. Perhaps it is in the fulness of time that it has come: for the work seems to be in striking concord with the teaching and spirit of Pope Pius XII, the inspired leader whom Providence has given to edify and guide the Church of our day. One of its excellences would seem to be that it indicates practical applications of the latter's counsels in the special conditions of our land.
Dogma and Mental Health
Authors: White Victor
Published: August 2024

These opening words of the Aihanasium, and countles other pronouncements of the Church to simile effect have been an occasion of much opprobrium and of genuine perplexity. They would indeed be detestable, even blasphemous, were they understood to mean that God arbitrarily trarily insists that the recitation of a right password, e.g. homoousias, Jilioque, transubstantiatio, ensured admission through the heavenly gates, while the utterance of an incorrect formula—homoiousias, subordinate, consubstantiatio, was a meaningless guarantee of the pains of hell. Such monstrous misconceptions are not at all behind the Church's meticulous formulations of dogma or her vigorous anathemas to heresy. She knows full well that, as the Vatican Council says, ‘Divine mysteries by their very nature so transcend the created mind, that even when delivered by revelation and accepted by faith, they remain covered by the veils of faith itself, and are, it were, wrapped in cloud’ (Denzinger, 1796).
Paul Verlaine, Mystic And Sinner 1844 —1896
Authors: Luff S. G. A.
Published: August 2024

The poetry of Paul Verlaine is a challenge to the conventional reader of religious literature. It is neither decreed nor supposed that every author of meditations or guides of the spiritual life be a saint, either in glory or, by reputation, in the flesh, but it is disconcerting if he is, publicly and, so to say, extravagantly, a sinner. It can hardly affect the reputation of verlaine to say now, fifty years after his death, that he is best remembered as a poet who sinned. Such a reputation alone might have effectively excluded him from the catalogue of religious writers. Verlaine enjoyed, however, the distinction of having published, in what appeared subsequently as little more than an interruption in his wayward career, poetic witness to a state of conversion and intimate conversation with God. He failed to win much sympathy from contemporary French Catholics, and it is difficult now to accord his religious poetry the esteem which, on its own exclusively, it deserves.
Love Of God
Authors: E.B.
Published: August 2024

For the ordinary person, hemmed in by his everyday and often monotonous job, it is very difficult to see any link between his life and the love of God. Exasperating anxieties with regard to meeting his financial commitments, and often worries with regard to health and well-being of his family, seem to preclude any connection between his life as he has to live it and that love of God as exemplified in the lives of saints and possibly 'good' people he happens to know. He may be punctilious about his religious duties, and feel in some dim way that God does hear his prayers, but somehow the love of God is not a reality for him. He wants to love God but does not know how!
Bible, Liturgy and Family
Authors: Armstrong Deborah
Published: August 2024

The title of Bible, Liturgy and Family seems at first not only forbidding but fantastic. Scholars throughout the centuries have devoted their lives to the study of these subjects and will continue to do so till the end of time, so what of value can I say in a short talk?

After a little thought I was able to answer my own question. I think that no family should be without ideas on the subject of the Bible and the Liturgy and also that the future of Christian society is being strongly influenced, if not shaped by such ideas as they have. It may also be true that at present, too many people have too few ideas and too few people too many, in which case we shall all benefit by a pooling of resources.

I must admit at once that I am conscious of large gaps in what I have to say, and I hope that these gaps will be filled by those whose learning and experience and vocation have fitted them to do it.
The Word of God Incarnate
Authors: Richards H. J.
Published: August 2024

Any treatment of the Incarnation would obviously have to give some consideration to the two heresies which have distorted the truth contained in this mystery. At one extreme lies Arianism, which wanted to treat Christ as if he was exclusively human, with the divine about him no more than superimposed by a sort of adoption. At the other extreme is Docetism, which wanted to treat Christ as if he was exclusively divine, with the human about him only a sort of optical illusion. Both are heresies. The truth hes between the two extremes. Christ is the Word of God incarnate, one person in two complete natures, divine and human.

For an article appearing in a number devoted to Bible and Worship, this excursion into speculative theology will appear less enigmatic if it is realized that Christ was not the first time that the Word of God had become flesh.
The Place Of The Liturgy In The Plan Of Supernatural Adoption
Authors: McGowan F. A.
Published: August 2024

The Liturgy is a great subject, sometimes an inflammatory one, known to generate devotion, enthusiasm, even heat. But there is a possibility of avoiding the controversial, making the study exploratory, seeking out the facts and their relations which help us to live better the life of union with God. So, for security reasons, it is well to begin by putting liturgy in its place by defining terms.

Liturgy is the Church's official dispensation of the Mysteries of Christ. It is the ‘whole’ body of the official prayers and sacramental actions whereby the communication of men with God is carried on in the Church'; ‘the life-dispensing, life-preserving’ and life-restoring activity of Ecclesia, the Mystical Christ‘. In less technical words: Liturgy is the official communication of divine Life by Christ through the Church. The liturgy consists of four inter-related parts: the sacraments, the sacramentals, Divine Office and ritual prayers, and the Liturgical Year—all centred in and drawing their source from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which, as the re-enactment of Calvary, is the core of the liturgy.
Parochial Sermons
Authors: Bailey Bede
Published: August 2024

Recently I was given the new H.M.V. issue of Chaliapin singing excerpts from the opera Boris Godunov. A copy of the Russian text, with a line-by-line literal translation, is provided with the record. Chaliapin's wonderful voice and artistic sense make a whole of the music and of the words, so that even if one were quite unable to follow their meaning, some of the highly-taut emotions would be received by the listener.

I put the record on for a friend one afternoon and gave him the text. At a first hearing it is not easy to follow. For twenty minutes we listened to a great dramatic performance. When it was finished, I asked what he thought of it. ‘He had a wonderful voice; and he was putting his whole heart into it, but I couldn't follow why he sang just as he did.