Occasionally, but without sufficient insistence, attention has been drawn to the danger of the present wave of enthusiasm for action among Catholic layfolk. It easily loses its efficacy in a hectic type of activism typical of this century. If we are to direct this precious seed within the boundaries of the good soil and to prevent its falling on the rock where its first vigorous shoot comes to a premature and fruitless end, we must keep constantly before our eyes the ultimate purpose of it all. We must purify our intention and seek first the contemplation of God. Consequently we should look for a type of action, within the reach of every member of the Church, which will tend constantly and directly Godwards, an action unperturbed by the turmoil of all the pressing modern human problems. In this way the urge to do something can be given a twist towards God and contemplation, so that all the other forms of activity may spring from a single and solid base, like the varied but permanent vitality of a Gothic cathedral on its foundation of rock. Such a type of action is to be found, of course, in the active share in the liturgy and particularly in the Mass. In the liturgy all action is intended to lead directly to the worship of God. as contrasted with social action which deals directly with charity and justice towards our neighbour.

Nothing is more beautiful than the way in which the Church has drawn from the few light touches and scattered references in the Gospel story, the perfect image of Mary. The world leaves to theologians the study of those prerogatives which exalt Our Lady as the co-redeemer of mankind and give to her a share in the distribution of graces. All must agree in their admiration of the Catholic type of the Virgin Mother, in whom we recognize the supreme ideal of the superlatively perfect woman; yet with all our marvelling love, we fall short of complete understanding of her excelling dignity. Still, with all our limitations and without going beyond the simple Gospel narrative, we can find in Mary’s character features of stupendous beauty. We should like to show here how the Gospel reveals her as a perfect type of wisdom.

Wisdom is the most excellent of the intellectual virtues. Its object is the consideration of the highest causes, and the most sublime aspects of things. It is a certain participation in the infinite and eternal Wisdom. St. Thomas observes that it judges and sets in order all the other virtues: for Christians, wisdom is a guiding principle of life, while for the pagan philosophers it was only a speculative power. Now, Our Lady was in a special way united to the Divine Wisdom; she is the mother and the spouse of the Eternal Wisdom: so the Gospel teaches.

We must begin at the beginning and endeavour to establish quite elementary notions as to the nature of things. And this is especially necessary to-day because in our civilization we have placed a great gulf between those who work at the thing we call Art and all other workers. I shall endeavour to show that this is one of the fundamental evils of our time, and in order to do this it is necessary to go back to the beginning.

The word “Art” in the dictionary has quite a simple meaning; it means simply “skill.” Thus we use the word art in common speech when we call a person “artful,” and when we speak of the “art” of cooking, the “art” of government or the “art” of living. But, it is quite obvious, you cannot be skilful about nothing; you cannot just be skilful. Skill must be applied to something, so by the word ‘ ‘art’ ‘ we mean first of all skill in doing. To get a nail to go into a wall without damaging either the nail or the wall requires considerable skill. So hanging pictures and such-like jobs is, as we say, “quite an art,” and therefore a man who makes a good job of it is, as we say, “quite an artist.” From this it becomes clear that the word “art” soon takes on a meaning of more than merely skill in doing and comes to mean skill in making—to do a thing skilfully is to make a good job of it.

When the Church pays honour to the remains of the Saints, when, for example, she translates them with pomp and ceremony, she wishes not only to invite us to venerate their relics, but also to draw a lesson from their memory. Even when for mere social or natural reasons we gather round an illustrious tomb, there is not just homage to be paid, but also a lesson to be learnt. On a tombstone we read at a glance the whole story of a life, its chief moral features and its meaning. In this we find one of the many reasons that justify the veneration of relics. At the first translation of the body of St. Dominic, so touchingly described by Blessed Jordan, there took place a wonderful manifestation of the merits of the holy Patriarch's life. The miraculous perfume which clung to the hands of Blessed Jordan was a lesson as well as a testimony. Lesson and testimony—both teaching and attesting his admirable purity. But to seize the full meaning of that lesson, we must connect that heavenly testimony with the last recommendations of St. Dominic on his death-bed.

Just as St. Francis, when dying, desired to be laid naked on the ashes, so St. Dominic on his death-bed, by an act of sublime simplicity, strips his soul before our eyes. It is sad to see modern historians, blind to the beauty of that scene, toning down its most striking features. Père Lacordaire is perhaps among the few who have gauged its true significance.

(a) The brief account of events in Spain since 1931, given on earlier pages, shows the vivid contrast between the weakness of the Republican-Socialist Government of 1931-1933 and the strength of the Republican Government of 1936.

(b) It would be incredible blindness for anyone in the working class or on the side of democracy and liberty, not to see what made this change possible.

(c) It was the developing strength of the working class as a whole; and this, in turn, was made possible by the developing strength of the Communist Party, and the triumph of its policy of unity and resolute class-struggle.

(d) As in other countries, the leadership of the Socialist Party was hostile to the Communist Party, hostile to a policy of class-struggle, filled with illusions of a peaceful, democratic constitutionalism.

(e) This led to the policy of holding back and even repressing the militant struggle of the rank and file in 1933.

(Spain, by Emile Bums, published by the Communist Party of Great Britain, page 11.)

The italics are those of the pamphlet. I am writing this not as a politician, nor in the interest of politics, but solely in the interests of the poor and of peace.

1. I need not point out that this honest self-witness of the Communist Party dispenses us from the almost impossible task of finding out the truth about the alleged terrorism on one side or the other. For the moment the only available evidence is of one side about the other; in other words, it is admittedly the weakest of all evidence.

“The true speaking absolutely is prior to the good, as appears from two reasons. First because the true is more closely related to being, which is prior to good. . . Secondly . . . knowledge naturally precedes appetite.” (Summa, 1a, q. 16, art. 4, English trans.)

The object of the intellect (i.e. Truth) “is more simple and more absolute than the object of the will” (i.e. goodness). Therefore the intellect in itself and absolutely is higher and nobler than the will—yet “the love of God is better than the knowledge of God; but on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof. Absolutely, however, the intellect is better than the will.” (Ibid., q. 82, part 3.)

These two texts from the Summa of the Blackfriar St. Thomas Aquinas must outline the attitude of Blackfriars towards Truth.

At the risk of failing to express what is in our mind, let us say that we fully accept the consequences of St. Thomas’s principle: “Truth is more simple and absolute than goodness, therefore the intellect is higher and nobler than the will.” In our aim of finding and telling the truth we will not primarily concern ourselves with what is good; or only with that highest good, the Truth. This is but to realize that transcendentals, such as truth, must be sought for their own sake or they will not be found in their fullness. Truth-seeking and truth-telling must not be blended and weakened with enquiries into the economic, political, ethical or theological value of the truth.

It is a sequel to the Catholicism of the Church that the unity of her members has not necessitated their uniformity; racial cultures have been strengthened by the acceptance of a common faith, and English like French or Irish or Italian types are still most distinctively national when most deeply Catholic. The history of the great religious orders affords a parallel, for the common end to which they are directed, the common faith that has created them and the bond of priesthood, have yet enabled them to maintain a full individuality. The greatest of their saints are those who most incarnate the particular spirit of each order. For they have found their perfection in the fulfilment of God’s will, and God's will has been fulfilled in their obedience, an obedience to tradition as well as to command, an acceptance of custom as well as of written law. Each of the greater religious orders has therefore possessed its own school of spirituality. For “spirituality” is but a clumsy term for the conscious following of a way to God.

Yet it would seem puerile to discuss which order and which tradition in spirituality is the more perfect in the concrete. Each retains the possibility of corruption and each will mirror in its finite contrasted achievement the infinite unity of God, since each will be perfect in so far as it participates in the divine and yet remain inevitably separate in so far as it is participant; “quod in Deo est simpliciter et uniformiter in creaturis est multipliciter et divisim.”