Perhaps I shall leave this house soon after Christimas. The circumstances which have compelled us to arrange my transfer to Echt are strongly reminiscent of the conditions at the time I entered. There is, no doubt, an inner link between them.

Among the new forms of religious life which now seem to be a characteristic of this present age is that lived by the Daughters of the Church in their monastery at Bruges. Their ideal is both contemplative and active To a casual visitor to the Béguinage—for the 'Monastère de la Vigne' occupies the 700 years old Béguinage, which was dying out for want of subjects, with a new monastic cloister, refectory and cells built out at the back of one the old Béguine's cottages—the life may seem almost wholly contemplative. What is most apparent as one crosses the quadrangle, whether by day or, if one is privileged to be a guest in the house, under a clear, bright winter's moon as one makes one's way to the church for Matins, is the almost palpable sense of the presence of God, of the nearness of the supernatural, of silence, of recollection, of a life lived on another plane or in another dimension caught up in God.

In the same chapter from which we have drawn the text of our sermon we also read that our Lord said to his brethren: ‘Go you up to this festival day: but I go not up to this festival day’, a little before he had said these words: ‘My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready’. Today, therefore, we have to consider what is this solemnity or festival day to which our Lord orders his disciples to betake themselves and for which the time is always ready.

We are often assured by those who should know best that sacramental confession and psychological analysis are very much the same thing. On this point at least there would seem to be a considerable measure of agreement between many Catholic spokesmen and many psychologists: if they differ it is only in the assertion of the superiority of their own respective wares. While the psychologists will tell us that sacramental confession is a sort of naïve and undeveloped, pre-scientitic forerunner of a psychological analysis, it has become almost a commonplace among many Catholic apologists that analysis is a secularised anil truncated form of sacramental confession.

The Letters of St Teresa of Lisieux, now first published in English, are an indispensable companion to her Autobiography. For they shed new light on her character and underline the special cachet of her sanctity. In the many short letters and occasional billets we are permitted to watch her soul as it were in working dress—and, let us say it at once, from the first letter to the last we see sheer sanctity. John Beevers, in his very understanding biography of her with the somewhat flashy title Storm of Glory writes: ‘St Thérèse of the Child Jesus is the greatest Saint of modern times . . . because she has liberated sanctity and made it obviously accessible to everyone’. It is this that strikes the reader so forcibly in her letters.

The desire to have Holy Writ put into modern terminology and so made easy of apprehension seems reasonable enough, especially since the past century has brought about such a remarkable revolution in manners of life and thought, a change chiefly notable for its departure from the immemorial customs of our fathers. Consequently we no longer find it easy to Understand either the manners or the speech of the past. Add to this the apparent paradox that the easier communication becomes between one people and another, between one part of the world and another, the more narrow-minded and insular we seem to become.

On the eve of the feast of St Peter's Chair at Eornswhen the octave of prayers for Christian unity begins, I am reminded of our Lord's prayer, I recorded only by St John, perhaps because he was leaning on his Master's breast at the last Supper, where he could hear every word. That strange, mystic prayer asked for a stupendous privilege for his loved ones. And these loved ones were not only the apostles, for our Lord said that he prayed not only for these, but ‘for them also who through their word, shall believe in me’.

Though the term ‘spiritual director’ is of modern origin, the vocation it denotes is very old. Wherever men have devoted themselves to the pursuit of perfection they have felt the need for guidance from someone more experienced than themselves. Even among those remarkable old monks and hermits that peopled the deserts of the eastern part of the Empire from the fourth century onwards, St Nilus is an outstanding figure. Perhaps his most striking characteristic is his gift for spiritual direction in the full modern sense of the word. The old legend that made him a high official at Constantinople who left the court late in life in order to become a hermit on Mt Sinai agrees ill with this office of a spiritual guide as he is represented in his many letters and several weighty treatises. But this ancient, story is no longer accepted by scholars; according to their general opinion we have to think of St Nilus as the experienced superior and novice master 01 a monastery at Ancyra in Galatia.

The following two short pieces have been commonly ascribed to St Basil the Great; since the Venice edition of 1535 they have been printed among his works (Anand: Revue bénédict., t. LVI, pp. 162 sq., nn. 7, 8). In the Maurist edition (Paris, 1721-30) they follow the Moralia, and immediately precede the Regulae fusius tractatae. This text, with the accont panying Latin translation, was reprinted at Paris in 1839 (S.P.N. Basilii … opera omnia, t. II, pp. 445-456), and less accurately by Migne (Patrol. Graeca, t. XXXI, col. 869-888). The Paris text of 1839 is here followed, though the division into short paragraphs, and their headings, are the translator's.

In all the discussions recounted between our Lord and the Jews in the fourth Gospel we should note that St John the mystic, the lover, gathers up the sharp details of human reasoning, the clear natural replies of the unbelieving mind. And his record of them in the Gospel can be said to clothe them with a certain dignity and finality. They are at least human replies to God, intellectual, rational; no better perhaps have ever been made; and in symbol they stand as the earliest evidence of the human mind face to face with God revealing—two orders, the reason of man over against the revealed word of God. The doctrines Christ announces are truths beyond the natural understanding of men; but they are truths nevertheless proposed to human assent. In the records of his ministry we find him hearing, and we ourselves can read, the questions, replies and criticisms that men, judging by their own intellectual measure, could give in objection to his mysterious dogmas.

In March 1946 the editors of La Vie Spirituelle printed a questionnaire relative to the recitation of the Divine Office. In January 1947 under the title ‘Lauda Jerusalem Dominum’ they published a summary of the 345 answers received. These were from priests, nuns and the laity most, though not all, of whom were tertiaries. While in most cases replies showed great attachment to the practice, comments on the length and language of the Office—as well as on the attitude of mind of many recitants raise some interesting problems. It was also seen that despite the goodwill shown towards their obligation (priests) or practice (laity), many were far from understanding the Church's end in establishing this. The book therefore includes a valuable chapter, ‘Towards a better understanding of the Office’, setting forth the origin, history and purpose of the breviary and another on the question of Latin.

Certain definite effects of divino grace operative through the Church may well he marked off; for in the Church the liberating and redemptive process is to be seen in full career. The Catholic axiom that grace does not mar nature but perfects it, is no empty phrase; nay rather, it epigrammatically states the; exact Catholic doctrine, or the Catholic claim, in the teaching of the Church.

Tuesday: Seven o'clock; it has been a hot, sweltering day and down through the dusty vineyards of Bordeaux the train, like a caterpillar, has made its way on the last lap of the journey. A courier has said that we will be in Lourdes in twenty minutes and already in other carriages other pilgrims are singing the Ave; in our own compartment, in a formal English way, we remain mute. One of the priests begins to say the rosary to himself and we all follow suit. For the last few minutes we have been winding with the Gave as it runs its twisting course, never having lost sight of it for more than a few seconds.

During the years between the two great wars it became apparent to two Catholic laywomen, one n doctor's daughter, the other a hospital nurse, that there was a great need for various forms of charitable activity in the countryside. They saw too, how a single-handed parish priest can be overworked and in need of help to enable him to carry on his apostolic work. They felt God was calling them to this end, so they gave up those things which go to make up the social life in the world, and while still living at home, consecrated themselves to God to be used as he willed in his service. They became tertiaries, and followed a rule of life. For some years it was very uphill work; they experienced great suffering and many difficulties until they were almost at breaking point, but they put their trust in God who, they believed, had called them to be his instruments in this work. In due course others with the same ideals joined them.