This stimulating and provocative book is an adaptation of the latest French edition of Au Coeur des Masses, for which Willard Hill deserves to be congratulated, because the reader is hardly conscious that the greater part of the text is a translation. It is definitely a book which ought to be on the shelves of every religious community, and read aloud in every refectory. But, like the disciples of Charles de Foucauld themselves, there is nothing violent about these seeds blown from the Sahara. They might be compared to a spiritual atomic bomb, likely to have far-reaching effects on the religious state in years to come. In a long introductory chapter Pere Voillaume sets forth what are the ideals of the Little Brothers of Jesus. These may be summed up as trying to live as poor religious, and contributing to the Church's invisible apostolate by ‘entering into Jesus's work of redemption', through prayer and sacrifice; what is more, without any enclosure—small groups actually ‘inserted’ into the world of the poor, sharing the hard life of that world.

The Feast of the Transfiguration on 6th August is one of the major feasts of the Byzantine rite. It is the feast of light and has a significant position in the cycle of the mysteries of Christ. Ontologically speaking it lies between the mystery of the Incarnation, celebrated at Christmas, and the redemptive suffering followed by the Resurrection of Easter Sunday. At Christmas the Eternal Light shone forth in human shape ‘from a virginal cloud'. At Easter he breaks the chains of death and reveals his risen glory. On Thabor he empowers his disciples to recognize him through the veils of flesh.

The Transfiguration comprises all the mysteries of the divine economy, and is an inexhaustible treasure of spiritual wisdom. Already in the first vespers of the ante-feast on 5th August we find the following prayer:

Come let us mount with Jesus in his ascent to the holy mountain, and there hear the voice of the Eternal Father (lit.: who has no beginning), bearing witness by a light cloud and the Holy Ghost to the nature of his Eternal Sonship: illumined in the spirit we shall, in the light, behold the Light.

How then shall our thoughts be ordered in this matter of the Creation, and in what manner may we search as to the things which nature can accomplish? Let this be answered: that it is by the nature of Christ who, abounding in the fullness of his Godhead, hath all things done according to his Will, even the Will of his Father; by this standard alone and in no wise by the mere nature of the Universe, must we conduct ourselves. As in the sacred record, when he was seen to heal the leper and to pour new light upon the sightless, the people glorified not some course of medical cure, but, in astonishment at the power of the Lord, gave unto him only (as it is written) the glory, so even must we.

‘How can that be', said Mary, ‘since I have no knowledge of man?'—and in these words showed herself holy in body and spirit, a virgin without stain and vowed to rem.ain so. The angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Don't question me about it', he said. ‘This plan is far beyond my reach, and no thought of mine can attain it. It is the Holy Spirit, not an angelic spirit, that will come upon you, and you will be overshadowed by the power of the Most High, not by any power of mine.'

Mary must not be content with a place among the angels; the parched earth cries out to her for relief that they could never and she will scarcely have left them behind when she will find what her soul longs for.

The Abbot Joachim, who founded the Abbey of Flora among the mountains of Calabria in 1189, is one of the most original and interesting figures of the Middle Ages. He was famous in his own generation for his prophetic vision and saintly life, and was a source of inspiration to his followers for two hundred years. Dante assigns him a place with the great teachers of the thirteenth century, in his Paradiso, where Saint Bonaventure points out the shining spirit at his side as:

The great Florentine had lost his faith in Papal and Imperial powers to enlighten the darkness of those times, and may well have embraced Joachim's hope of a spiritual renewal of Christendom by a sudden illumination of the divine purpose in history.