Secular Institutes: I—In the World

Extract

You live in an age that is twisted out of its true pattern and among such people, you shine out, beacons to the world, upholding the message of life.’ (Phil, ii, 15.) These words of St Paul to the Philippians might be addressed to members of Secular Institutes at the present time. It would be difficult to find in the world a nation, a city, a family, living its life according to the true pattern, the pattern of Christ. He is ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life', yet how small is the number, even amongst Christians, of those who follow him. The message of life is unheeded, unrecognized even, jammed as it is by powerful propa ganda, lies, secularization, false values and materialism—the message of death. The profound meaning of the Incarnation’ the ‘sanctification of the profane', the divinization of humanity, this has become obscured and mankind throughout the world searches gropingly and often unwittingly for the realization of Christ's message: ‘I have come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly'.