bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Essentials of Prayer
Authors: Lawler Peter 
Published: August 2024

I spent this morning preparing some lectures on John Locke. He is, I think, a dull writer but I found a passage in his Introduction to the Essay which expresses very nearly my own feelings in reading this opening paper. ‘Everyone', he says, must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham, and in an age which produces such, masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr Newton, with some other of that strain, its ambition enough to be employed as an underlabourer in clearing the ground a little.’ At this conference then which has brought together so many Boyles and Sydenhams of the spiritual life I shall try only to clear the ground a little.Let us begin—in the fashionable manner—with our present situation. Many of us have not met before. Suppose we engage upon our first conversation. There is an imperative need to find pics of conversation no matter how inconsequential. As acquaintance grows into friendship, however, small talk becomes unnecessary. Pauses in the conversation cease to be embarrassing.
Methods of Meditation
Authors: Hollings Michael 
Published: August 2024

Put all thy heart's confidence in the Lord, on thy own skill relying never; wilt thou but keep him in thy thoughts wherever thou goest, he will show thee the straight path.' (PROVERBS 3, 4.)We live today in a world which has lost the ability to meditate. Such a generalization must exclude the individual souls who are trying to follow the advice of Proverbs, ‘keep him in thy thoughts wherever thou goest', and those who have entered religion. But taken by and large it is a fair commentary on the present situation, as can be seen from the following extract from a broadcast talk, given some years ago by Bertrand Russell: ‘As men grow more industrialized and regimented, the kind of delight which is common in children becomes impossible to adults, because they are always thinking of the ”next thing” and cannot let themselves be absorbed in the moment. This habit of “thinking of the next thing” is more fatal to any kind of aesthetic excellence than any other habit of mind that can be imagined, and if art, in any important sense, is to survive, it will not be by the foundation of solemn academies, but by recapturing the capacity for wholehearted joys and sorrows which prudence and foresight have all but destroyed.’
The Person in Education
Authors: St John Henry 
Published: August 2024

The title of this address may sound to you a little tough and abstract, yet it is a good subject for this afternoon’s meeting because you are all parents, and each parent has a Person, often several persons, your children, in whom you are deeply interested, and for whose welfare and education you are personally responsible, since God has chosen you to co-operate with him in bringing them into being, and in preparing them for their independent lire as persons in the world.Now I am not a parent and it would be impertinent for me to try to teach you your job as parents in detail. What I want to do this afternoon is to remind you of certain basic principles underlying the true notion of education. Principles are important; without them we can never really understand any problem, and this is a problem it is supremely important to understand thorghly.
Scripture Terms— I: 'Testament’
Authors: Johnston Leonard 
Published: August 2024

The word which we translate as ‘testament’ could equally well be called an alliance, a pact, an agreement, a covenant. And when we speak of a ‘new covenant', we are implicitly appealing to an ‘old’ covenant—we mean that our present relationship with God is the conclusion and climax of a relationship which already existed in some form. Therefore, if we are to understand this basic institution of our religion we have to see it in its original setting.For practical purposes we may begin with Abraham. Abraham was a semi-nomad wandering on the outskirts of civilisation in the second millenium before Christ. His position was not unique or strange: it is quite a normal way of life, one that is still lived by people in the same circumstances in the Middle East today; it is even a necessary way of life for people who depend for their livelihood on animals which have to keep on the move in search of pasture and water.
St Dositheus
Authors: Felicity  
Published: August 2024

'He was well to do and lived a careless and worldly life in a military circle'. Dositheus is not the only young man to be described in these terms in any century. It is safe to say he is not the only one to have been converted by the fear of eternal punishment either. Perhaps in the twentieth century when the notion of hell is considered a naive superstition, such a conversion may be more rare, but Dositheus was born around the middle of the sixth when (we are pleased to think) people were not so civilized and enlightened.The young man heard from his friends and soldier acquaintances a great deal of talk about Jerusalem and made up his mind to visit the city and see for himself whether ‘army language’ was exaggerating its attractions. He toured the chief sights and was duly impressed, but it was a flamboyant painting depicting the tortures of the damned that made him stand still and stare in Gethsemane.
Husbands and Wives
Authors: Todd John M. 
Published: August 2024

If we look at contemporary society, we are struck immediately by its obsession with sex, with sexual desire and its results. Marriage, divorce and sexual aberration are always news. The politician, the police, the social planner, the psychogist, the moralist, are concerned with population figures, juvenile delinquency, family planning, unmarried mothers, and sexual neurosis, resulting sometimes in complete inhibition, sometimes in complete promiscuity. They are all concerned with the family, and with what is happening at the root of the family, with the relationship between husband and wife. If we look at Christianity we find at its centre a doctrine of love, a sacramental doctrine which has its common realization in marriage; we find the sacrament of the family with its root in the relationship between husband and wife.The most publicized aspect of the relationship between husband and wife today is the control of the number of children born to them. Various methods are used to prevent conception ensuing from intercourse. The most frequently heard aspect of the relationship from the Catholic point of view concerns the same subject.
The Human Condition: A Study of some Seventeenth Century French Writers
Authors: Squire Aelred 
Published: August 2024

'We are like ruinous old houses that are falling down on every side. If you prop them up on one side, they fall down on the other. They must be supported in all directions, and renovated from the very foundations, for the whole thing is going to rack and ruin. We are all the same, the perfect and the imperfect alike. History is full of souls that have been lost by the abundance of their graces … Lucifer found the occasion of his ruin in heaven'.These few phrases, which end with something that sounds like a reminiscence of Gregory the Great, are nevertheless as characteristic of their own author as they are of their period. They form part of an address given by Pierre de Bérulle2 at the opening of his visitation of one of those Carmelite convents for whose existence in France he, more than anyone else, was responsible
The Lady of Fair Love
Authors: Farrell Ambrose 
Published: August 2024

In his latest encyclical, ‘Fulgens corona gloria', the Pope has proclaimed our Lady's Year. The occasion of this proclamation is the centenary celebration in December of the infallible definition of the Immaculate Conception, of the Virgin Mother of God. This is but an instance of the progressive development of Marian tradition from the earliest times is seen to be implicit and almost instinctive in the Faith of the Church. Pope Pius XII has allied himself closely with that tradition by becoming its spokesman. This he has done in defining the dogma of the bodily Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven, and dedicating the present commemorative year to her honour.Between Mary and the mysteries of faith there is an essential connection. This is seen so clearly in the Holy Rosary, wherein the joys, sorrows and glories of a holy partnership between the Son and his Mother are woven into a garland of prayer.
Virgo Prudentissima
Authors: Velarde Ralph 
Published: August 2024

The idea is current that virtue and intelligence have little to do with each other; the idea implied in the line of the song, ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever'. We may readily agree that virtue has little do with mere smartness, or with that slick mental dexterity so much admired in the lower reaches of the commercial world; but it is certain doctrine that mature, adult virtue cannot dispense with intelligence since the will is the executive or directive faculty of the intellect.The planning directive virtue of the moral life is prudence, and it is an intellectual virtue in the sense that its seat Is the intellect, and its function is to teach us how to act, applying general principles to conduct here and now in given concrete circumstances. It enables us above all else to keep the end or reason of action in view.
The Problem of Communication in our approach to other Christians
Authors: Bennett Mabel 
Published: August 2024

Reunion, is in the air today; in discussion in Church circles, in the press, on the radio and television, and even in the House of Lords. Among the non-Catholic Churches the last few years have seen schemes of reunion for South India, North India and Ceylon, and all these schemes show a readiness to examine established positions in the light of the present challenge to Christianity from atheism and materialism.This drawing together of the non-Catholic Churches is comparatively recent, and is very largely the achievement of the Student Christian Movement and other inter-denominational societies that have made many of those who have worked with them impatient of the barriers that divide one denomination from another, particularly on the Mission Field. The result has been a growing awareness of the evils of division and of the damage done to the Christian cause in the eyes of the unbeliever.
Family Life and the Common Life
Authors: Ward Maisie 
Published: August 2024

The great need is for a fully common life, within the family, which will make the family of use to the world around it. In past ages the monastic community was the spearhead. Today I feel it is the family, the Catholic family, which is to be the spearhead for Catholic penetration of a pagan world.To make common life within the family a reality it is necessary to treat the children of the family as persons. I disagree with the saying, ‘Give me a child until it is seven …'. Apart from the mythical child of five who, on being told he had committed a mortal sin, replied: ‘Oh, but I cannot commit a mortal sin yet because I have not got the use of reason', one trains rather than teaches a child of under seven.
St Thomas Aquinas and Mother Julian on Charity
Authors: Marshall D. E. 
Published: August 2024

If we consider the ideas of St Thomas and Dame Julian on divine charity we find that there are similarities and differences. As might be expected, St Thomas is more analytical; however, Dame Julian has some ideas the sources of which may perhaps be found in her contemporary European mystics. Whereas St Thomas works out his ideas from his theology and on a developed plan, Dame Julian's thoughts are the result of her visions and come in the order of their occurrence.St Thomas writes: ‘God's love as a divine gift is eternal and immutable, yet as regards the effect it imprints upon us it may at times be interrupted in so far as we at times fall away from him and again return to him. Now the effect of the divine love in us—which is taken away by sin—is grace whereby a man becomes worthy of eternal life; from this, however, sin shuts him out.’ (I-II, 113.)
Mummy, Here's God
Authors: Campbell Duncan 
Published: August 2024

I am writing this article about the duty, as it is considered, of the pnest to visit in his parish. I take the title from what an excitable little girl exclaimed once at my entry. Her pert young mother's laughter, when she ran out to see who ‘on earth’ it was, and sat collapsed on the stairs, still jars in memory in my ear. I know I am not God, I mean. I don't know that it is quite so funny.The subject of visiting does interest us all. It is part of ideal Catholic life: Father at home in the Catholic family, intimate with everyone, not only available in need as a close friend, but influencing all the time by his contact, towards good relations, better life, finer manners, more careful choice of career, deeper judgement in marriage; his very presence reminding of faith, restoring hope, inspiring love; counteracting the whole battery of trivial and stultifying fantasies current as so much of today's politics, literature and entertainment. One can hardly imagine full Catholic life without it.
An Ambiguous Saint
Authors: Windass G. S. 
Published: August 2024

The tenth century was a time of change in the common attitude of Christians towards war; a change in fact so great as to be best understood as a swing from one extreme to another, and we should therefore have in mind from the outset two diametrically opposed points of view.On the one hand, there is the uncompromising rejection of war and of military service by the early Christians. In the first two centuries after Christ, there was virtually no possibility of Christian participation in worldly conflicts between states. The militia Christi, the soldiers of Christ, were always contrasted with the militia saecularis, the soldiers of the world. The soldiers of Christ were to fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons, and the final victory was the victory of the martyr; the soldiers of the world fought with carnal weapons for base material ends, and were subject to the lusts of the flesh; there was nothing m common between the camp of light and the camp of darkness.
Prayer of Petition and After
Authors: Steuart R.H.J. 
Published: August 2024

Isn't it pleasing to God that my prayer should be just simply Thy Will be done'? But our Lord did not only tell us to treat God like a father who will change his mind; he emphasized it by the story of a woman who asked for bread and was refused, and went on asking, and at last, because she went on asking, she got it. Of course God does not change his mind; but there is something in us that corresponds to that. Every time you pray to God for something, you are equivalently asking him to change his mind.Ask yourselves, would it really be pleasing to a father or mother if their children never asked them for anything? They want to be asked! Otherwise it would seem their children were lacking in affection for them. I expect it is the perpetual burden of mothers’ and fathers’ lives to be asked again and again. Well! God, Var Father, wants to be asked.
An Adventurous Family
Authors: Valentine Ferdinand 
Published: August 2024

The English Society of the Grail is a secular institute, autonomous and ecclesiastically approved, with its own rules and constitution. Its members are not religious, but laywomen who wish to dedicate their whole lives to work for Christ in the lay apostolate. Those who come to the Society come to an adventurous family.Any girl can join the Society if she is willing to give herself to Christ to do anything, anywhere and at any time. There is room Hi die Society for girls of every social level and of every occupation, for anyone who wants to tlirow in her lot for life with a society of pioneers and who is prepared to accept die discipline of that Society. For lay institutes must be disciplined and their members be bound together with bonds of steel.The lay apostolate cannot be driven by any mere transitory enthusiasm—indeed there is a distinct danger for women in any violent and undisciplined enthusiasm and if this is the driving power of an organisation then the life of an apostle cannot last longer than a few years.
The Assumption in the Liturgy of the Eastern Church
Authors: Gavriloff Michael 
Published: August 2024

In the liturgical tradition of the Eastern Church the idea of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin includes the following incidents: the death of the Virgin, her burial. her rising again, her assumption, and finally her enthrone- ment in heaven as Queen of all being. According to the eastern manner of thinking it is the first event, that is to say the death of the Blessed Virgin, which occupies the central position in liturgical prayer and meditation. This death is called the falling asleep’ or ‘dormition', whence comes the name of the feast of 15th August, ‘The Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary'.In preparation for this feast there is a period of fasting called the Lent of the Dormition which begins on 1st August. The 14th is the Vigil and the whole festival ends on the 23rd.
Magnificat
Authors: Black Giles 
Published: August 2024

We may contemplate in this Mystery how our Lady was carried up body and soul into heaven, to the great joy of the heavenly court. And as we contemplate the mystery we may allow the phrases of our Lady's own song, the Magnificat, to pass through our minds.My soul doth magnify the Lord—soon after the death of God's Mother that soul of hers which had ever magnified him was re-united to the body which had given a body to him through whom ‘all honour and glory’ is given to the Father.And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour—Mary was preredeemed by Jesus. From this fact we understand her Immaculate Conception, her sinless life and her Assumption into glory where her rejoicing is fulfilled.Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid—it is the humble of heart whom God raises on high—he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Secular Institutes: II—For The World
Authors: Melia Teresa 
Published: August 2024

‘Sent into the world on my errand.’ The word apostle signifies one who is sent.Who sends, to whom, and why? Christ is the sender. To whom does Christ send his apostles? To the whole world. The Kingdom of God has no visible frontiers, it is within the heart of each human being. ‘Go out all over the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation’ (Mark xvi, 15). What is Christ's errand? To deliver the message 'which concerns the Word who is Life'.‘What he was from the first, what we have heard about him, what our own eyes have seen of him, what it was that met our gaze and the touch of our hands.’ (I John i, 1.) Why is the message delivered? ‘That you too may share in our fellowship … with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’
The Divorce Of Mysticism From Theology—II
Authors: Vandenbroucke F. 
Published: August 2024

The Rhenish school drew into its orbit many of the contemplatives of the time. They were not of the stature of their predecessors. The sole exception to this mediocrity was of course Bl. John Ruysbroeck (†1381). This great mystic of Groenandael depends in more than one point on Master Eckhart, but he has been careful not to leave any ambiguity on his ‘dualist’ thought, that is, on his doctrine of the distinction between God and the creature. The Book of Supreme Truth (Dat boec der hoechster waerheit) has expressly stated this: ‘no creature can be or become holy to the point of losing its created nature and becoming God'. Certain expressions of Book III of the Spiritual Nuptials (De gheestelyke brulocht) did however give rise to the criticisms of Gerson.Ruysbroeck's mystical teaching explains, then, in what Measure man can arrive at union with God. At the beginning pf his career as a writer, he admitted the possibility of the intuitive vision of the divine essence.
Lenten Build-Up
Authors: Lynch Geoffrey 
Published: August 2024

More than once it has been said that it is no use playing a harp to a jackass! I suppose we can see in such an assertion the obvious truth of the saying of St Thomas that whatever is received, is received according to the disposition of the receiver, and that's why the harpist ignores the jackass. Possibly too that's why the jackass does not bother to sqawk to the harpist! It seems to cut both ways.The Tchaikovsky enthusiast might be quite ecstatic about a superb rendering of the Nutcracker Suite, but even he would not feel so enthusiastic about it if at the time he had a raging toothache. To the true appreciation of such music he could only hope to return when the toothache stopped and his disposition was better.
Sacerdos in Aeternum
Authors: Elwes Cary 
Published: August 2024

Only recently the liturgy has recognised this title by a votive Mass in honour of the Priesthood of Christ. One of the oldest of his titles, its origins stretch back not only through the history of the Jewish people but through the history of the whole world.Jesus our brother, Jesus the Man, the Everlasting Man, Jesus the representative of our race before the throne of God, his and our Father, stood and stands before that throne in the character of priest. Chosen by God he was, before ages began, a worthy representative, performing the supreme act of a priest: sacrifice.The Jewish priesthood was a confined thing. A symbol, may be, of things to come, yet so much a symbol, so much a superficial creation, as not to merit, at least in its decrepitude, much honour. This fact of its passingness, its shadow-character, was even admitted in the Old Covenant.
The Penitent: Blessed Angela de Foligno
Authors: Graef H. C. 
Published: August 2024

Blessed Angela Of Foligno, born about 1249, lived a very worldly and culpable life till she was about forty years jid. Then she was suddenly converted—in what way we do not know—became a tertiary of St Francis, and was apparently almost from the beginning favoured with high graces. From that time onwards her mystical life is richly documented owing to the care of her confessor, who wrote down in Latin what she dictated to him in the vernacular. Her life seems truly an illustration of St Bonaventure's saying that God takes not into account what a man has once been—his grace can raise even the greatest sinner to the heights of the mystical life, provided he responds to the divine call with sufficient generosity.There is, however, a mark which ordinarily distinguishes the mystic who is a penitent from the one who has never lost his baptismal innocence.
Management and Life Today
Authors: Consultant Business 
Published: August 2024

If American businessmen are right in the way most of them live now, then all the wise of the ages, then all the wise of the ages, the prophets and the saints were fools. If the saints were not fools, then the businessmen must be.Such is the stern, uncompromising beginning of a leading article in Fortune when the Chancellor of the Jewish Seminary writes on ‘The American Businessman's Moral Failure'. He realizes that, in an industrial society especially, the manager bears tremendous responsibility: his customs, morals and attitudes pervade the whole life of the country. The tragedy, as this article stresses, is that most managers have lost sight of the moral sources of economic strength and that no country can reach the height of economic success achieved by Britain or the United States without a philosophy and a faith more concerned with the human spirit than the comfort of the body.Nearly two years ago, the British Institute of Management programmed for official discussion: ‘Are we failing to stress sufficiently in our selection and development of management the spiritual aspects?’ and within the last two months Belgian employers have discussed—for the first time—'Evangelical Poverty and the Christian Employer'.