It is the word of God himself, declaring his merciful purpose to Moses and the people on Sinai, that tell us the principal elements in the concept of ‘redemption’ as significant for ancient Israel. ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you in to me. Now if you will heed my voice and keep my covenant you shall be my own special possession from among all the peoples…’ (Ex. 19.4f). The first element is God's entirely gratuitous act of intervening in history to liberate the Hebrews from Egypt. The second characteristic, just as unconditional, is shown by the words ‘and brought you in to me'. To set the enslaved people free, only to abandon them in the desert to starve or to be re-taken by their oppressors, would not be redemption. The notion is rather that of a slave redeemed and adopted as a son into the redeemer's household.

Two preliminary points: the first can be sufficiently made through a series of quotations.

From the Aylesford Priory News Letter;. ‘There was also (at a dinner) a very interesting and lively parish priest from a nearby (French) parish. His work has to do with the “problem” of industrial relationships between employers and employees. He apologized for mentioning the word “problem” to describe his work'.

From a private letter of an Oxford history graduate and ex-family case worker, now married with two small children. ‘I was asked with five or six others (to the B.B.C.) to discuss problems of new housewives. I always say I haven't had any problems—of course I burn the chips regularly but I accept this as a part of life!’

Commenting on two famous medieval encyclopedias, the Liber Floridus of Lambert of Saint Omer, and the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, Carl Nordenfalk observes how these authors ‘combine a broad universal vision with a special interest in their home surroundings’. In Herrad's case this is certainly most striking. Her vision could hardly be broader (it is even comparable to Saint Hildegard's), yet the picture which she paints of Hohenburg, the shrine of St Odile where she was abbess, leaves no doubt about the central point of her vast twelth-century universe. The monastery stands on a green mound, without perspective, decorated by three enlarged sprigs of clubmoss for trees. The nuns are grouped in a harmonious ensemble of purple, green, blue and black gowns, with brown cloaks. The congregatio religiosa ... in dei servido in Hohenburc caritative adunata, is Herrad's first preoccupation, and if, for caritative, we are meant to read cantative, as one authority suggests, the picture is even more charming.

‘The most significant factor of the last one hundred and fifty years is the urbanisation of the world’ said Fr Houtart, Secretary of the International Centre for Research in Religious Sociology. Addressing the members of the International Catechetical Year at Lumen Vitae, he compared the revolution caused in society by this phenomenon to the barbarian invasions of the fourth century, which changed the face of the world as it was then known. This signifies, he said, far more than an increased density of population in the cities; it is a real transformation of social life. M. Labbens, President of this Society, also speaking during this course of lectures in religious sociology, went so far as to assert that ‘The world is about to give birth to a new civilisation'.

We awoke in the aircraft high over the Southern Sudan, flew parallel to a tremendous red line of dawn, and touched down at Entebbe, on Lake Victoria, to a melodramatic roll of thunder. But the thunder did not quench or contradict the dawn: as even something so commonplace as a bunch of middle-school terminal examination papers goes to show. Perhaps school essays in King Alfred's school in the tenth century showed a similar dawn. Here are some extracts: first from a young girl, who wrote:

‘It is clearly seen that there are very many primitive people in this country. Poor people have no religion and they believe in spirits. Such are the people in my native land.

In 19541 went to live with my grandmother who was surrounded by Pagans. There was a village nearby in which there was a newly-married couple…