“The preaching of the truth,” said the Pope last year to the French bishops, “the preaching of the truth did not bring many victories to Christ: it brought Him to the cross. It is by charity that He won souls and drew them to follow Him. That is the only way in which we shall win them.” The importance of the question of means cannot be overstressed. Over and over again, great enterprises, Christian enterprises, have been brought to nought because evil, unchristian means have been adopted to achieve them. What is the business of the Christian, as a Christian, in regard to the temporal order? It is to work for the building of the temporal City of God: the remedying of injustice and hatred, the establishment of justice and charity. Temporal and spiritual meet and fuse in the structure of society inasmuch as this or that social structure preserves or destroys the eternal values; so that when a social structure destructive of Christian values obtains, it is part of the duty of the Christian to work to change it. What kind of means is he to adopt?

We shall certainly be misled if we allow ourselves to forget —as so often we do—that on the one hand catholic means universal; on the other, that to-day there is no existing Christian temporal order.

We shall certainly be misled if we think of the work of the Christian in the world in terms of making the world safe for the (existing) Christians.

Two recent facts without precedent in the history of the world are worthy of being considered by the readers of Blackfriars.

Divine grace may be regarded: firstly, as the primordial vocation of man to the supernatural order; secondly, as a gift habitually dwelling in the justified soul; thirdly, as an actual and indispensable help from above.

The practical importance of the doctrine of the primordial vocation of mankind to the supernatural order is unlimited. In it we shall find unending motives for admiration and adoration. It is said of St. Augustine that, after his conversion, he could never fully satisfy his desire to contemplate the divine plan for the salvation of the human race—that is to say, the idea of the Incarnation; and yet, in truth, the Incarnation is, as far as we can judge of such a mystery, only the remedy to the check which the fall of man gave to an antecedent plan. Let us go back further than the Gospel and put ourselves face to face with that incomprehensible love of God for his creature, which destined us from all eternity to the participation of His essential and infinite Beatitude: for that is exactly what we mean by our vocation to the supernatural order. “We shall be like unto Him, and see Him as He is, face to face.” This is indeed a great mystery, since, as St. Thomas teaches, God loves nothing in us that He has not first caused in us. In the natural order, His providence inclines Him towards the needs of that degree of being that He, as Creator, has imparted to us.

And he brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.

When Adam was invited by God to name all the animals, he was the first poet. Thus poetry is as old as mankind, and fundamental to man. Adam had a head, a heart and five senses: he was a perfect man and could sing. Adam the poet, when he named the animals, did not give them their scientific names, studied by genus and difference: no, he beheld the marvels of creation, he loved them, and he cried out the music of their names. And the sons of Adam also have intelligence, desire and sensation as their father had, they also have the experience and love of Creation, and— amantis est cantare—they will also always sing of it. For man, endowed with the power of speech and song, will not rest with experience. His experience will overflow, he will always be ready to speak of what he loves, he will make something drawn out of himself, that self which has somehow been transformed by the love-experience, and spontaneously will say the Thing that he has got to know and to love. From the day when the first man called out the names of the living things of the earth, the heart of man has continued to utter a good word—eructavit cor meum verbum bonum, as the poet hath it—echoing the refrain of that first divine poem: “And God saw that it was good.”

This is a work of sane and considerable scholarship covering a field in which, in spite of the work of Père Lagrange, Catholic scholars have shown some measure of diffidence: a field also in which thomist theology has a peculiarly acute responsibility. The problem is stated on p. 25, “The difficulty is that while Christian theology asserts that God is unknowable, it simultaneously asserts that God can be known. And not Christian only, but any form of belief which can be called theistic is bound to assert that in some sense God can be known.” The approach to it, “Not to get rid of anthropomorphism, which is impossible if man is going to have any idea of God at all, but to make the division between right and wrong anthropomorphism where it ought to be made— that is the main problem for all philosophy of religion.” Already the Catholic theologian has grounds to fear that the edges of the problem have been blurred. Not that, in such a fear, there is any room for sectarian pride or aloofness. Dr. Bevan himself underlines the nature of Catholic responsibility in the matter (p. 317), “It would be quite a mistake to suppose that these discussions (of the theory of analogy) are of interest only to Roman Catholic theologians. The problem with which they grapple is a problem which must confront any modern thinker who believes in any God at all.” Further back (p. 315) he says of the same doctrine of analogy, “I cannot profess myself able to make sense of this explanation.

Whatever the significance of the Munich agreement, whether the pessimists are right in seeing it as a miserable political wangle, or the optimists are justified in their hope for a lasting peace for Europe and the World, one thing is clear, the Christian cannot afford to ignore it, when like the rest of the world he begins to take stock. Even if it was no more than a sign in the sky, not of the shape of things to come, but a taunting reminder of all that might have been, it was clearly a reminder, the meaning of which has not escaped general notice in spite of all the attempts to dilute it with talk of political honour and the flag.

Apart from its possible positive results, one of the main elements we cannot fail to appreciate is the sense of urgency it has imposed on the world, an urgency not to be totally side-tracked by the rush for renewed rearmament. By so substantially increasing the tempo of events it has imposed on the Christian issue in Europe a “now or never” condition in the struggle. It is this connection that M. Bernanos has a special significance.

The immediate instruments of that struggle are Catholics themselves, whose unity is one of dogma and worship, directed by one authority, but who in a larger sphere reflect every shade of opinion not ruled out by creed. It would be useless even if desirable to regret it. It is an expression of the elemental life of the Church.

Of all the rites of Catholic Christendom, that used in the Archdiocese of Braga in the North of Portugal is probably the least known. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Braga is remote and an end in itself, since it is not passed en-route for anywhere else, such as Lyons or Milan, and few books have been written on the subject.

Of late years the retention of this venerable rite has been made the subject of two decrees of the Holy See. In 1919, since a section of the clergy had forsaken its distinctive Liturgy, Pope Benedict XV declared (”Sedis hujus Apostolicæ”) the Rite of Braga to be obligatory throughout the Archdiocese for both Mass and Office, a decree specifically endorsed by the present Pontiff in 1924 (“Inter multiplices gravesque curas”). This last decree finds a place in the preface of the latest addition of the Missal (1924), where the rite is referred to as a “Portuguese glory” (“Lusitania nitidum velut speculum”).

The ecclesiastical importance of Braga dates from the fifth century, when its bishop was advanced to metropolitical rank, as the town, after the destruction of Astorga by the Visigoths (433), had become the capital of the Suevic kingdom.

A distinctive liturgy appears to have been formed— Roman in foundation, with Mozarabic, Gallican and local additions—for in the sixth century we find Bishop Profuturus appealing to the Apostolic See for liturgical guidance. Thus, in 538, Pope Vigilius sent the Church of Braga the Roman Baptismal service, the Canon of the Mass and the proper of Easter to serve as a specimen for the formation of other Masses.