Just two years ago His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, issued the Apostolic Constitution which established canonically those groups of laity who had banded themselves together for the same purposes as those in religious Orders but without the external structure of religious life. This recognition of Lay or, as they are more commonly known, Secular Institutes is of considerable importance both for these groups of laity themselves and for the whole Church in keeping her contemporary, abreast of the times and adapting her apostolic mission to the changing conditions of modern life. Eeaders of LIFE OF THE SPIRIT have shown great interest in this document on this account and have Hi particular wanted to know the principles upon which this new form °f dedicated life rests. Many have evidently hoped that these principles would enable the whole gamut of religious life, both contemplative and active, to be reproduced under essentially lay conditions.

The opening words of the Catholic Catechism give a very simple answer to the enquiry concerning the origin and purpose of man. ‘Who made you? God made me. Here we are immediately confronted with the problem of our own origin, since as soon as our minds awaken from the slumbers of unconsciousness, we become supremely aware that we are alive, and seek for an explanation. The question then arises, ‘Why are you alive?’ And the correct answer must be, ‘Because God loves me'. God's love is creative and the cause of things. But it may be asked, ‘Why does God love you?’ The answer to this query is found in the fact that God is what he is. He is infinite goodness, and wills to communicate himself to others. St Thomas has said, ‘to love anything is nothing else than to will good to that thing'. (I, 20, 2.) It was by an act of love that ‘God made me out of nothing by his word'. Moreover not only does God create, but he preserves in being whatsoever he has made; ‘In him we live, and move, and are', says St Paul (Acts. 17, 28).

One of the more important aspects of the growth of the spiritual life is the way in which the higher stages, far from leaving the lower entirely behind, do in fact reproduce the earlier virtues and activities in a new milieu; a higher synthesis is reached. Thus it would be a mistake to imagine that merely because progress in grace means first the predominance of the moral virtues and then the theological, that therefore such virtues as religion, obedience and various forms of asceticism fade away in the wings as faith, hope and charity take the stage. There are some who consider that they have reached a degree of perfection where obedience hardly applies; love predominates so that they are free from the hindrance of the moral virtues, particularly from the inconvenience of having to do what with other men they are told. They feel themselves above the law.

But in fact these ascetic virtues are raised to a far more perfect and instinctive mode hy the grace of unitive prayer and the flowering of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

It is a deplorable loss to Catholic reading that ‘The Library of the Fathers', the classic series of translations edited by Pusey, Keble and Newman should have been allowed to remain unfinished and long out of print. Moreover, it is already more than a century since these vernacular versions first appeared, and they have never been surpassed: fine scholarship and loving care alike went to their making, and when we pray for England's return to the Faith, the re-availability in our language of that patristic literature whose istudy birmght the greatest of English converts into the Church should be covered by our intention.

Among the first members of the series, in 1839 to be exact, there appeared the ‘Treatises of Saint Cyprian' the third-century bishop and martyr of Carthage, to be followed in due course by the companion volume of his Epistles.

Father De Foucauld, the modern Desert Father, has a world-wide renown and considerable interest has been shown in his Fraternities, the Little Brothers of Jesus, which have sprung, as it were, from his very life-blood. But less is heard of the Little Sisters of Jesus, who are in many ways quite different from the usual type of religious Congregation. They lead a contemplative life and yet it is lived not inside an enclosure but outside, amongst the materialistic workers of France as well as the nomadic Infidels of the Sahara. It is a life of poverty, labour and love; its purpose is to imitate as closely as possible that of Jesus the Carpenter in his workshop, Jesus the Lover of mankind who, in his public ministry, shared the life of the common people, his heart and soul overflowing with love for God and man.

Thus the desire of the Little Sisters is to live among the poor in such a way as to be identified with the poor. And their poverty is authentic for they have no secure background of dowry, income or organised charity; their Fraternities are maintained by the work of their hands.