We are used to hearing the present age in the Church’s history described as the age of catholic action: there is a possibility that we may not sufficiently realize that catholic action essentially demands and implies catholic contemplation. By catholic action we mean the sharing, by the laity, in Christ’s redeeming work in and for the world: trying to make known the truth entrusted to the Church, trying to create a Christian order of society, trying to reclaim for men and women those fundamental rights and duties which our Lord came to teach the world and which the world has so largely lost. But all this work, and every part of it, implies the need of contemplation; and if the contemplation is lacking, the action will not achieve much lasting good. Misguided benevolence can do almost as much harm in the long run as sheer wickedness; and action without contemplation is blind.

Action of any sort is blind without contemplation of some sort. The symphony played on the concert platform is significant only if it expresses an artist’s vision; the military campaign would be military chaos without the precedent thought of the strategist. And the need of contemplative vision becomes greater as the aim of given action is more important for humanity: the artist whose material is stone or paint must be a contemplative, but it is still more important that the maker whose material is human flesh and blood should be a contemplative; and when you come to those whose material is the souls of men and women you come to the greatest need of contemplation of all.

Contemplation is the way to peace. But there are some who hold the contrary, not without good reason: for.

1. Those who are entrusted with the drawing up of peace- treaties are generally men of action. And if we find much to criticise in their achievements, we can rarely doubt their goodwill and we must admit their success in establishing what all men are agreed to call peace.

2. Contemplatives withdraw from the world to seek peace as the first condition for the fulfilment of their vocation.

Against this we have the testimony of the Church’s liturgy: Beata pads visio. That is to say, peace is achieved through a vision or contemplation.

Peace is something more than concord. There is concord when one party to an agreement accepts his obligations reluctantly, but there is no peace: one desire conflicts with another, there is no tranquillity or order in his soul. Yet desire is never completely at rest until the soul is in the presence of God. A relative tranquillity can, however, be attained in this world, more or less perfect according to the degree to which we perceive that only He who created our soul can maintain its harmony. When the perception of this truth contents us we are at peace. And this is attained through contemplation.

The order in the world and its tranquillity are fashioned according to a divine plan. Those who seek peace cannot therefore afford to neglect examination of the design which it is their task to realise: “They must be made to climb the ascent to the vision of Goodness, which we called the highest object of knowledge; and, allowed to remain on the heights, refusing to come down again to the prisoners.”

There seems to be a special need in our time for new forms of the contemplative life, lived not behind grilles and high walls, cut off from the world as much externally as internally, hut lived in the midst of the world, open to its needs, but not contaminated by its vices. This form of life is nothing new; on the contrary, it is older than other forms, for it is the life lived by our Lord, our Lady and the Apostles as well as by the Christians of the first centuries. All through the history of the Church there have been men and women who, though remaining “in the world’’, have combined a life of intense contemplation with the life of the Apostle who goes out to seek what is lost—we need only think of Saints like. Catherine of Siena, Francis de Sales, Bl. Anna Maria Taigi or the Curé d’Ars.

But, it may be argued, they were saints, souls with a unique vocation specially chosen by God—is it possible for a person less abundantly gifted to live in our distracted paganized world a life that can he truly called contemplative? There are many souls today who, despite their admiration for the life of the Contemplative Orders, yet feel the need and the attraction for this other kind of life. The world seems to cry out for it in its very blindness and indifference, and where there is a need God will not withhold the means of satisfying it. With such a call to a life of contemplation without “leaving the world” in the physical sense, there seems to be no reason to ignore the opportunities. For the contemplative life in this noisy world is so difficult that there need be little fear of illusion.

The perfection of the Christian life consists essentially in Charity; principally in the love of God, secondarily in the love of our neighbour. (Sum: Theol: II-II, 184, 3). The source and exemplar of all Charity is the Uncreated Love which is the very life of the Blessed Trinity, while its plenitude is possessed by the Soul of Christ, of Whose fulness we have all received. Each Religious Order strives in its measure to reproduce some aspect of this “Charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge” (Eph. 3, 19), the contemplative life pertaining directly and immediately to the love of God, while the active life is more immediately concerned with the love of our neighbour. (II-II, 182, 2). Yet St Dominic, by founding an Order whose purpose was contemplation ordained to the Apostolate—contemplan, et contemplata aliis tradere, has perhaps come as near as is humanly possible to combining the two lives and the double aspect of Charity, in a single vocation. St Catherine, herself an outstanding example of the realisation of the Dominican ideal, had this brought home to her, when in a vision she saw St Dominic emanating from the heart of the Eternal Father, and resembling even in features the Word Who proceeded from his mouth. The Eternal Father explained to her: “My only Begotten Son devoted all his life to the salvation of souls . . . Dominic, my adopted son . . . taking on himself the office of the Word, directed all his efforts to the salvation of souls . . . That was the chief object that led him to plant and to train his Order. Therefore I tell you that in all his acts he may be compared to my Begotten Son.”

First of all I would like to thank the Executive Committee of Pax Romana and the Chairman for allowing me to address you here to-day and to speak to you about the position in Germany. You know that the German Catholics are not officially represented at this Congress, and I would like to stress the point that my credentials to speak on their behalf consist in nothing but the simple fact that I am a German Catholic myself, and that I was in Germany and in contact with some of the most eminent German Bishops, priests and laymen until the end of 1943.

The theme of our discussion to-day is Relief and Reconstruction. It concerns the tasks, with which Pax Romana will have to deal in the near future. I must, therefore, ask your indulgence if, before talking about what lies before us, I shall refer at some length also to the past. There are two reasons why I should like to do this: first, that if you want to find the remedy, you must first know the disease. The problems of Relief and Reconstruction are thus of necessity to some extent retrospective. Second: Pax Romana will have to decide—and I hope that will be some time soon—whether it is going to re-admit as constituent members German University Federations. Monsieur l’Abbés Gremaud has told me—and I am painfully aware how right He is—that the spirit of Pax Romana has found only very few faithful witnesses among the Germans—students and graduates—and that the great question of the future would be how to make sure about the trustworthiness of any new federations that might be formed.