The prominence of Pharisaism in the Gospels—the sustained energy of Our Lord’s denunciation of it, His use of it as a sort of dark background against which to illustrate His own religious teaching, should alone be enough to convince us, since we believe in the divine praeparatio evangelii, that the Pharisees are for all time a supremely important type of religious corruption. Whereas we generally look upon them as a type of such imbecile hypocrisy as could hardly be reproduced, and without a qualm of misgiving we continue to spit upon their gaberdines. One thing that helps us to regard their miserable failings as something quite foreign to us is the false notion we have that their general religious position was essentially Protestant, or rather Puritan, in spirit. The truth is that the Pharisees were more akin to Catholics than to Protestants; and they seem to have been far removed from Puritanism. Their multiplying of religious observances upon which we look with great disapproval was at its best an attempt to carry devotion to the Law, that is to the will of God, into everyday life: and not out of any hatred or suspicion of life but simply in order to sanctify it. For far from being Manichees they were not even passable ascetics. The famous rabbinic saying, “A man will have to give account on the judgment day of every good thing which his eyes saw and he did not eat” probably reflects their general mood. Apart from the New Testament, what evidence there is would seem to show that their religious programme was not regarded as burdensome by the people; rather one would gather that it was welcomed by them, only too gladly accepted as a very satisfying way of fulfilling their duties.

If there is one section of the community which seems to remain impervious to Catholic influence, it is that body of educated Englishmen whose religion is little more than an ethical code. There have been, of late years, numbers of conversions from among the Anglo-Catholics, Congregationalists, and others of more or less definite belief; very few from among those supporters of institutional religion whose creed—if it can so be called—is limited to a certain standard of external conduct. Leaders of men, imbued with the best public school traditions, the section is a large and important one; we will typify it by the representatives we should find in a regimental Mess, or in the Ward Room of one of His Majesty’s ships.

Such men have little opportunity of meeting with Catholic life: a mixed marriage here and there: a few Catholic friends in their own profession: a visit to a Catholic country, where they will continue to live very much their own life—a race apart; these are the sum total of their contacts. These separated brethren are worthy of more consideration and attention than they are accustomed to receive. Moreover, there is a defensive standpoint, and those Catholics who are drawn into the same state of life, and often, by force of circumstances, deprived of many of the helps of their religion, have to be on their guard lest they too become “code-religionists.”

‘It is to be held as an article of faith,” wrote Pope Pius IX, “that outside the apostolic Roman Church no man can be saved, for it is the sole ark of salvation.”

Nevertheless, we find in the same pronouncement, we are to hold with equal certainty “that those who are afflicted by ignorance of the true religion, provided that ignorance is invincible, are not accounted in any way guilty by God on that account.”

The Church’s language is that of paradox. Her decrees, her definitions, sketch out supernatural cosmic realities in huge, generous, sweeping outlines. There is little refinement, distinction, qualification. The faith-lit mind is trusted to press on behind these symbols to the grand totalities symbolized. Thus the Church guards us against seizing the relative sign for the absolute thing, the letter for the Divine Word, representing for us infinitesimal fragments of the integral reality to be believed and loved.

Mere handling of these two volumes—the second edition of Père Mersch’s unique book on the Mystical Body—gives one a good sensual delight through sight and touch. But within the attractive format lies still greater pleasure for the intellect, for not only is it accurate in textual and historical criticism complete with footnotes, bibliographies and indices, it is also written in an easy-flowing style. As the positive treatment of an actual and profound point of Christian doctrine it is a perfect work of its kind. With great skill P. Mersch leads the reader to the authentic sources of the doctrine of the Mystical Body, and once there the reader looks back perhaps to discover that in his previous attitude towards the Church as the Mystical Body he had been veering the wrong way.

We do believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Every time we repeat the Creed we profess our faith in that doctrine. But sometimes we forget what faith means, and try to put forward natural reasons as convincing evidence of the truths we profess. Particularly do we tend to see the total explanation of the Church within the limits of human knowledge, forgetting perhaps that faith is a special grace from God by which we are enabled to assent with utter certainty to divine mysteries, to supernatural truths inexplicable to the human mind. The Church is just such a mystery, ranking alongside of the blessed Trinity, the Incarnation or the Eucharist. Her nature, the intimate union of her members in Christ, cannot be wholly explained with any more convincing natural evidence than those other mysteries; nor shall we be able to analyze her more successfully than St. Paul who piled simile upon simile in his effort to describe this society which requires a divine light to be seen in its true colours.

The English Dominican Province has given to the Church five cardinals, seventy-two archbishops and bishops, several papal legates and nuncios, and to the state some ministers of prominence such as Archbishop William Hotham, the favourite minister of Edward I, and Bishop John Gilbert of Hereford, twice Lord High Treasurer. In theology, philosophy, Sacred Scripture and other branches of ecclesiastical science English Dominican writers of repute number more than a hundred, and it is easy to show that during the first three centuries of their existence they were by far the most prominent theological body in England, whilst extant MSS. of sermons and state documents testify to their ability and popularity as preachers. In contemplating this long list of eminent men the question has sometimes been asked why there are no English Dominicans officially enrolled in the Calendar of Saints either as canonized or beatified. The difficulty, which applies equally to the Irish Province with its lengthy list of martyrs, is not really hard to answer. At the time of the Henrican schism the feasts of six Dominicans only were kept in the Order, now the number is three hundred and four, of whom two hundred and ninety-four have been raised to the altars since 1600. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the English Dominicans, persecuted and generally working in secret, and frequently in prison, had little leisure for gathering the information necessary to obtain the beatification or canonization of the many members of the Province noted for their sanctity or heroism as martyrs. It has been left to us in more propitious times to undertake this task, and surely we can hope that such a work will be blessed with success.

Jacques Riviere, one of Claudel’s converts, writes:

The French have the dramatic instinct better developed than the rest of us, to judge by their power of staging things. Lourdes from day to day is a good instance of the ease which only instinct can give in the setting out of thought or prayer in action. The French also work harder at the things of the mind, and their literature is central, that is, they can get all the thrills they want at home, and when they desire to add to their store, they assimilate the great things from abroad, and leave the trivial. Their Ecoles moyennes study Milton better than ours. They as a nation know much more about Dante than the English, whose national comprehension has been increased, for good or ill, by Dore’s illustrations.

“We went on up the narrow strait, thus anxiously. On this side lay Scylla . . . on that Charybdis.” In the Odyssey of every Christian there are times and places when the words of Homer strike home. Worship and personal prayer are essential to him as motive forces directing his journey “up the narrow strait”; and in his living experience both are beset by the two monsters that lie within bow-shot of his anxious passage, routine and pietism. The one springs from misapprehending the rôle of corporate worship, the other from over-absorption in individual devotion. As there is little steerage way there must always be sufficient impetus to keep the frail craft moving straight ahead, responsive to every touch of the helmsman. Individual temperament will give an inclination to one side or the other: the scrupulous towards self-absorption and the easy-going to mechanical routine.

The same difficulty holds good in some degree for group worship with its tendency to divagate towards high-and-dry formalism or towards an unstable revivalism. Each extreme marks the over-emphasis of one of the two essential coordinates of worship, a disciplined cultus and personal responsiveness. In the history of the Church the scales have moved successively up and down without irrevocably destroying the careful balance, though the individualist side has tended to be outweighed, since corporate devotion has a constant bias towards formalism, and the movements back have been sudden and violent in character.

Christ died wholly for me. Christ died wholly for all men. Christ did not die only for me. Christ did not die only for the totality of men. For each and for all, not for a group or a part. This is the way we are made to stand up together, each person aGod’s purchase and all united in Christ: firstly, as it is seen, by His death, by the price that He paid for us. In the price that has been paid for my soul I am equal to the entire human race. In the matter of redemption you don't count one, two, three; you count Jesus Christ.

Hence the Church is Catholic, universal, when its members are contained in one room in Jerusalem, and the historic Church is Catholic even when it is impossible to say in how many souls faith is sincere or one spark of charity bums. We know but cannot understand the identity of Christ with His Church. But it is Christ who is the unity of the Church, its integrity and its comprehensiveness.