Calmly and seriously we take up anew the task which we could not bring to completion before. We speak again. And before all else, to our brethren everywhere we say this : however far apart we may be, however blank our ignorance of each other’s faces and even names, let us live together as believers in Christ, as the upholders on earth of his Spirit.

We have not, we must admit, escaped failure. We have lacked something, lacked that spiritual violence which alone storms the Kingdom of Heaven and without which to be gentle is to be a coward. We have lingered over things preliminary to the Faith or consequent upon it, forgetting our first task, to keep alive Faith in the Crucified. And that is how the Salt of the Earth turns savourless.

Here and now, then, we proclaim the need for contemplation, and in particular for contemplation of the Redemption actually at work in the world. What is contemplation but the noblest Christian activity, the supreme labour of love? How can Charity be alive in the world if it be not alive in our minds’ effort to explore the mysteries of our Faith? If we submit ourselves—and rightly—to all the lowly tasks that are part of authentic Christian living, this must not cause any misunderstanding of the nature of our obedience. It is not the blind obedience of a slave, like a pawn in some great game beyond his comprehension. We are friends, not slaves. Light has been given us and light is required of us.