bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Modern Catholic Literature
Authors: Hope Felix 
Published: July 2007

We usually confine our reading to books upon subjects in which we are interested, but this is a mistake. It is often more repaying to read a good book on a new subject about which one does not care two straws than a poor one on a subject in which our interests are already engaged. One may come to care about the new one. If the proverb L’appetit vient en mangeant is true of the pleasures of the table, it is still more true of the pleasures of reading. We can become interested in almost anything once we begin to know something about it. Teak and hard-wood trees, Roman pottery, the Man in the Iron Mask, the history of the fork, the habits of earwigs, the trade routes of the Phoenicians, are subjects which, though they seem to appeal to different tastes, may end by interesting the same person, once he or she has taken the preliminary plunge. We do not profit half enough by the flexibility of our interests; if we did, we should not so often find ourselves complaining in a library crammed with books that we can find nothing to read.Should sailors in books talk like sailors or like parrots? (I exclude, of course, parrots that have lived with sailors.) The question may appear frivolous: it comprises, I believe, one of the central problems of criticism. It is not necessary that an author should make his characters talk as they would talk in real life: it is entirely necessary that he should make us believe they are talking as they would talk in real life. Consider the difference in technique, in this matter, between Meredith and Hardy.
A Celtic Prayer Book
Authors: Macfarlane‐Barrow J. 
Published: July 2007

So far as concerns his native language, the Scottish Gael of to-day is illiterate. Educational policy has not been too sympathetic with the Gaelic.This accounts for the fact that, in spite of the tenacity with which Catholics in the Highlands have kept the Faith, there is but one book of devotion, printed in Scottish Gaelic, procurable to-day.A study of Lochran an Anama, “The Soul's Lantern,” gives us a glimpse into the mind and soul of the Gael. Here we find, in addition to Gaelic translations of Latin and other prayers familiar to all Catholics, devotions peculiar to Celtic temperament. Here we are with Patrick and Columba and the other saints of Gaeldom, praying in the forms they used.Redolent of the daily life of the inhabitants of the Highlands and Isles in those far-off times, these prayers are still appropriate to the needs of their descendants. In the Outer Hebrides the Gael's manner of life, his hopes and fears, even his natural surroundings, have altered less in 1,200 years than those of his neighbours in the course of a century.The sea and the mountains still provide the chief perils, whilst tilling the soil, herding the cattle, and fishing from small craft in stormy seas constitute the principal means of existence.Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,Be the Three-in-One with us by day and night,In the trough of the sea, or on mountain-sideBe our Mother with us, and her arm about our head.“The Consecration of the Three Narrows” (Wrists, Waist and Ankles), a prayer to St. Columba for the sanctification of every bodily act, is probably one of the oldest Celtic prayers we have.
Romano Guardini and the Liturgical Movement
Authors: Raybould A. N. 
Published: July 2007

The Liturgical Movement, maintains Guardini, was born, not made. It came apparently into existence from a universally expressed desire for a life more fully and symbolically Catholic.From whatever sources this movement sprang it is certain that in Romano Guardini it found its most able interpreter. In France, Germany and elsewhere this liturgical revival coincided exactly with the publication and translation of Guardini’s Sinn der Kirche and Geist der Liturgie.Perhaps a certain parallel may be found between the rebirth of metaphysics and the liturgical revival. Both movements have the same foundations, both spring from the need of some absolute order, and both are heralded as an escape from individualism.Guardini shows how the liturgy, by incorporating all revealed truth, insists on the existence of an established order. Through collective prayer it offers an escape from the individualism of the times.
The Humble Singer of Emmanuel
Authors: McNabb Vincent 
Published: July 2007

The Eucharistic hymns of St. Thomas are a cycle—indeed the only cycle—of liturgical song. They form such a unity and fulness of Eucharistic truth and worship that a greater than Elgar or Bach would be needed to express them as an oratorio.But there is one spiritual quality throughout them which the greatest master of music would confess to be beyond the power of his craft. Every line of these Eucharistic hymns, though unmistakably wrought by genius, is yet dyed by a subtle rosential humility which has escaped notice only by the semblance of a miracle. Yet if none but the prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, this twice-hidden humility of the Eucharistic hymns has given them a place apart in the great throng and song of liturgical prayer.Let us draw attention to this quality (i) in the Hymns of the Divine Office and (2) in the Sequence of the Mass.
Women's Housing Conference
Authors: Liveing Susan 
Published: July 2007

Sir,—My attention has been drawn to an article on ‘‘The Elements of Social Justice” in the November number of Blackfriars, in which the statement is made that “starting with a sub-committee of the Catholic Social Guild, a programme of Housing plans was circulated among various Utility Societies, with the result that a National Council is to be formed under the presidency of the Chairman of the original C.S.G. Committee.”This statement is incorrect. A sub-committee of the C.S.G. —the C.S.G. Housing Enquiry—was formed some time ago. It sent out a Housing questionnaire which was not sufficiently supported to be of practical use, and the Committee languished. The Chairman, Lady Sanderson, then called a Women’s Conference of societies interested in Housing, to urge the necessity of a Women’s sub-committe to the Central Advisory Committee under the new Housing Act. This idea was widely accepted; delegates from Public Utility Societies, the National Council of Women, the Federation of Women’s Institutes, the Women's Committee of the Royal Institute of British Architecture, Women Housing Estate Managers, Women Pubilc Health Officers and many others have attended the Conferences and given cogent reasons for their co-operation. As a result of the Conferences it is hoped that the Minister of Health may consent to receive a deputation.It may fairly be claimed on behalf of the C.S.G. that the inception of the Women’s Housing Conference is due to the initiative of the Chairman of its Housing Enquiry, and that she and the other officers of that enquiry have acted as Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Hon. Secretary of the Women’s Housing Conference.
The Music of A Dead Culture
Authors: Tindal-Atkinson Aelwin 
Published: July 2007

Dorothy Osborne, writing to her lover, Sir William Temple, in 1653 gives this description of her daily life at her home in Bedfordshire:The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep or cows, and sit in the shade singing ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but trust me these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings to their heels.The picture of the shepherdesses singing at their task on an English summer’s evening catches the same pastoral beauty that one finds in Gray’s Elegy: to some it may seem romantic and a touch sentimental. The writer, however, was not of that temper: she shows in her letters a plain common-sense and humour, which gives this description a sense of exactness: nor is her picture exceptional. Sir Thomas Overbury had written this of milkmaids and shepherdesses a few years earlier:She dares to go alone and unfold her sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none; yet to say the truth she is never alone; she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts and prayers, but short ones.
Liturgical Prayer
Authors: Clerissac Humbert 
Published: July 2007

When Liturgical Prayer is spoken of as an excellent and perfect prayer, as an exercise in meditation and even as a source of contemplation, two common objections are raised:(1) that it is purely vocal and too much a matter of words;(2) that it is too impersonal and not easily adaptable to individual needs. Let it be said at once that these objections are not serious. We may readily admit a certain incompatibility between private vocal prayer and meditation; but it is quite a different matter when Liturgical Prayer is in question. The Divine Office, even when celebrated with the joyous briskness of Dominican custom, leaves ample scope and full play for mental activity, in whatever direction that activity may tend. Besides, the divine praise—through the consideration of created things—goes straight to God: it fixes the attention firmly on the Supreme Object of all prayer. It is GOD we are concerned with, not the words, which are but the vehicle of our prayer. Thus, the Liturgy makes it easier to transcend the facts and circumstances of our earthly condition; it enlarges the field of vision; it leads per ea quae facta sunt to the invisibilia Dei.
Abbot Chapman's Theory of Contemplation
Authors: O'Driscoll Benet 
Published: July 2007

The theory of contemplative prayer put forward in Abbot Chapman’s Letters was examined in the June, 1935, issue of Blackfriars, but since then certain passages in the letters themselves have been the subject of controversy. The question of the soundness of a widely read book of spiritual instruction is obviously an important one, and it merits some further consideration. One learned writer has recently suggested that, since we have nothing but incidental phrases by which to judge the Abbot's correctness in stating the problem of contemplation, it is unnecessary to assume that he intended to express general principles in the passages that have caused misgivings. This view does not accord with the fact that one of the published letters, dated as early as 6th April, 1913, explains fully the theory of mysticism which the Abbot had worked out for himself. The same theory appears in his article on Catholic Mysticism in the Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, published in 1917, and it is further elaborated and defended in the Downside Review article of 1928, which is reprinted as an appendix to the Letters. This theory, then, and its practical implications must claim attention.The Church has had no occasion to make a solemn judgment on the nature of contemplative prayer, but two pronouncements of her ordinary magisterium require careful consideration by anyone who would study the subject. The first is the Encyclical Letter Divinum illud of Pope Leo XIII (9th May, 1897), a document that was clearly inspired by, and well sums up, St. Thomas’s general teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, as indeed the teaching of St. Thomas sums up and explains the Catholic tradition, scriptural, patristic and liturgical.
Montessori Practice and Thomist Principles
Authors: Standing Mortimer 
Published: July 2007

The Montessori Method of Education may be said to be based on the twin principles of “Freedom” and “Prepared Environment.” This is an inadequate definition, but it will suffice for our present purpose.It is now over twenty years since the first “Casa dei Bambini” was opened in Rome, and hundreds of visitors came from every quarter of the globe to observe the behaviour of those small slum children from the tenement houses. During this time the Method has spread to the most distant corners of the world—not only amongst Europeans, but also amongst Indians, Chinese, Africans, South Sea Islanders and many others. The results have been always the same, and can be summed up in a sentence. The Montessori Method has proved beyond a doubt that the child loves work.
The Reunion of Christendom and the Social Problem
Authors: St. John Henry 
Published: July 2007

May I confess at the beginning of my paper that I have no particular qualification for speaking about the social problem; but for a long time I have been interested in the problem of how Christendom can be reunited again, how all the separated religious bodies or organisations can be brought to a realization of the truth that the unity and authority of the Catholic Church were appointed by Our Lord, and that all Christians must some day return to them. I believe that the two problems are very closely connected, and that the ultimate solution of the social problem depends upon the extent to which a solution is found for the problem of the Reunion of Christendom.I suppose we should all agree that the social problem is primarily an economic one. The modern industrial system has brought an enormous increase in production, but it has also brought about a dislocation between production and distribution. The primary economic problem is how to get rid of this paralyzing dislocation. But this primary economic problem brings in its train a whole host of moral problems, because many of the attempts to solve the economic problem involve actions and policies which in one way or another come into contact with the moral law. Thus we get the tremendous problem of the gradual dehumanization of human beings by the conditions of life and work which seem inseparable from much of our industrial civilization, and with it the attendant problems of birth-control, sterilization, euthanasia, and so on.
The Perennial Apologetic of the Church
Authors: Drewitt Norbert 
Published: July 2007

Hilaire Belloc defined the attitude of the Catholic apologete to his sources, when he wrote: “I say the Catholic ‘conscience’ of history—I say ‘conscience’—that is, an intimate knowledge through identity: the intuition of a thing which is one with the knower—I do not say ‘the Catholic Aspect of History.’ This talk of ‘aspects’ is modem and therefore part of a decline: it is false, and therefore ephemeral: I will not stoop to it.”Tertullian, too, was a Catholic apologete in act, when he wrote, of the Church in the third century: ‘‘Is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same it is not the result of error, but of tradition.” As Thomists would express it, more exactly: for this agreement no cause is given except it be one alone, namely the identity of the primitive dogmatic and hierarchic seed set in the world by Christ. This is certain.
Sedes Sapientiæ
Authors: Clerissac Humbert 
Published: July 2007

Nothing is more beautiful than the way in which the Church has drawn from the few light touches and scattered references in the Gospel story, the perfect image of Mary. The world leaves to theologians the study of those prerogatives which exalt Our Lady as the co-redeemer of mankind and give to her a share in the distribution of graces. All must agree in their admiration of the Catholic type of the Virgin Mother, in whom we recognize the supreme ideal of the superlatively perfect woman; yet with all our marvelling love, we fall short of complete understanding of her excelling dignity. Still, with all our limitations and without going beyond the simple Gospel narrative, we can find in Mary’s character features of stupendous beauty. We should like to show here how the Gospel reveals her as a perfect type of wisdom.Wisdom is the most excellent of the intellectual virtues. Its object is the consideration of the highest causes, and the most sublime aspects of things. It is a certain participation in the infinite and eternal Wisdom. St. Thomas observes that it judges and sets in order all the other virtues: for Christians, wisdom is a guiding principle of life, while for the pagan philosophers it was only a speculative power. Now, Our Lady was in a special way united to the Divine Wisdom; she is the mother and the spouse of the Eternal Wisdom: so the Gospel teaches.
Giuseppe Toniolo and Christian Democracy
Authors: Sturzo Luigi 
Published: July 2007

To Catholics of the older generation the names of La Tour du Pin, Leon Harmel, l’Abbe Naudet, l’Abbe Pottier, Henri Lorin, and with them those of Mgr. Ketteler and the two Cardinals Mermillod and Manning, evoke memories, memories of the movement known as Christian Democracy.It is strange that those two words, which forty years ago aroused such hopes on the one hand, and at the same time such rage and resentment among good Conservative Catholics, mean very little to the youth of to-day. Is this really so? And if it is, will people ever speak of Christian Democracy again?Professor Giuseppe Toniolo was not only one of its chief supporters, but its theorist. The epithet Christian as applied to democracy (which was then as much feared as communism is to-day) appeared in Italy for the first time in Father Curci’s voluminous work Christian Socialism, published in 1885. But it was the Belgian Verhaegen who, in 1893, brought the expression into current usage as an ideal to be fought for: “Christian Democracy” had henceforth an established footing.
The Catholic Mind
Authors: Gilson Etienne 
Published: July 2007

“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever. . . ” (I John ii, 15-17).Bossuet recalls these words at the beginning of his Traité de la Concupiscence, and he adds this brief but profound commentary: “The last words of the Apostle show that the ‘World’ of which he speaks consists of all those who choose things visible and passing in preference to things invisible and eternal.” I would add in my turn that once we have grasped this definition of “the World,” we have as good as solved the vast problem we are going to discuss.We are in the world. That is a fact, whether we like it or not. We cannot alter that fact. And yet we are told that we must not be of the world. How be in it and yet not of it? That is the great problem that has haunted the Christian conscience from the beginning. It is true that the Church, offers one radical solution: to flee from the world, to renounce it utterly and take refuge in the religious life. But that solution cannot be everybody’s.
World History
Authors: Zacharius H. C. E. 
Published: July 2007

“The new linking up of all parts of the world inevitably affects our view of history. In a sense, world history has just begun. Before, it was the history of more or less isolated groups: now, we must think in wider terms, we must emerge from our nation-caves into the wider world of to-day and to-morrow.'’ In these admirable sentences the authors of the most recent World History sum up their survey of human history from palæolithic beginnings to the Manchurian question, with which they bring it to a close: most fittingly, as they say, “since of all the problems of world history that of the relations of East and West, of European and Asiatic peoples, is perhaps the most important for the future of mankind.”Messrs. R. Flenley and W. N. Weech have indeed provided us with a World History in a single volume, which compares most favourably with any similar attempt made hitherto. It not only tells the whole story—which is not merely one of conquests and defeats, but of cultural development, social changes, artistic and scientific achievements—but it tells it impartially and tells it remarkably well: concise and encyclopædic though it be, it can be read with real pleasure and sustained interest from cover to cover.
Origins of Jansenism
Authors: Whitacre Ælred 
Published: July 2007

To investigate the ancestry and relationships of the theological system expounded in the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansen, and to trace the history of the controversy about that system which arose in France in the seventeenth century, is a difficult task. It implies a knowledge not only of St. Augustine’s writings but of Pelagianism and Semipelagianism, and to some extent of Predestinarianism. It supposes, further, a knowledge of St. Thomas’ theology and of the writings of the Thomist commentators; and it includes an examination of the system of Baius, as well as of that of the Molinist school.An analysis of the doctrine contained in the Augustinus, with its historical implications, has recently been attempted by Mr. Nigel Abercrombie. His work is divided into two parts, the one theological and the other historical. The latter section, beginning with the career of Saint-Cyran and ending with the destruction of the Couvent Port-Royal, affords interesting reading and is not without merit, but it is vitiated by onesidedness. The author loses no opportunity of depreciating the Dominicans.
New Expressions of Religious Life
Authors: Gordon Dorothy F. 
Published: July 2007

One of the proofs of the Divine origin of the Church is her adaptability to the needs of successive generations. The Faith once for all delivered to the Saints is always the same, and so also are the Counsels of Our Lord for a life of perfection. But as we have a Christ-given Authority living on earth, the application of these Divine Counsels to the needs of human life have had to be adjusted from time to time to meet the various requirements of a changing world.The first Religious of the Christian Faith were hermits, who lived austere lives in the caves of the desert. Later these men gathered together in monasteries, where they earned their living by farming, and lived holy lives singing the praises of God. The ideal of these early monastic foundations was always separation from this wicked world, and the construction of a brotherhood according to Christ. But by degrees a far off cry reached the ears of these sequestered Christians, the cry of the pain of the world, the agony of Christian slaves, and a sense of pity and responsibility for suffering humanity crept into their hearts. So heroic men sacrificed the security of the cloister and banded themselves together into Orders for the ransoming of slaves. The next inroad on the peace of the cloistered monk came from the ignorance and the religious needs of the laity, for whom the secular clergy were insufficient.