The Apostle as Poet

Extract

The true apostle must be a poet, and an apostle who is not a poet is no true apostle.

In order to understand this claim, we may start by describing the would-be apostle who is no apostle. A Christian sets out to be an apostle for Christ. He joins a Catholic Action group or enters an Order such as that of the Dominicans who specialize in preaching. He begins to prepare himself for the work by reaching down from the shelves of the library large tomes of Christian doctrine and theology. He learns all that the Church commonly teaches; he delves into St Thomas's deep and precise explanations. Better still, he may con the gospels to discover what Christ himself taught. He will study, too, maybe in a course of apologetics, all the reasons against the faith that are likely to be brought up against him in his missionary activity, and he will discover, not merely ‘the answers’ as though every problem he met could be answered by his own wit, but, sensibly, he will discover the lines along which such attacks can be met and parried.