The whole of the Catholic world has this year bee directed by the Holy Father to centre its devote on the Mother of God. The occasion is the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, and the effect is one more year in which the constantly developing doctrine of the place of Mary in the work of the redemption and therefore in the daily life of man, is given impetus and hurried on apace. It might seem that we had progressed too far, that there was little more to be said or thought on this matter. But in fact the development, like true growth any kind, is drawing its vigour from the centre and the is in these days an increasing sense of origins and source which shows that the mind of the Church is not, like the mind of many men, moving on from one thing to another without retaining any unity or synthesis. The mind of the Church is the mind of the Word of God and therein all one from the central reality to the outermost detail of idea or phrase.

In his latest encyclical, ‘Fulgens corona gloria', the Pope has proclaimed our Lady's Year. The occasion of this proclamation is the centenary celebration in December of the infallible definition of the Immaculate Conception, of the Virgin Mother of God. This is but an instance of the progressive development of Marian tradition from the earliest times is seen to be implicit and almost instinctive in the Faith of the Church. Pope Pius XII has allied himself closely with that tradition by becoming its spokesman. This he has done in defining the dogma of the bodily Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven, and dedicating the present commemorative year to her honour.

Between Mary and the mysteries of faith there is an essential connection. This is seen so clearly in the Holy Rosary, wherein the joys, sorrows and glories of a holy partnership between the Son and his Mother are woven into a garland of prayer.

It is a common theme in Marian theology that our Lady's motherhood of men means that in some way we are born of her when we are born into the life of grace. What that means exactly no one knows; there is divergence of opinions about the closeness of Mary's work in our souls to the work of the Holy Ghost. Evidently our Lady does not save us; to what extent God has chosen to associate her with himself in this divine work is not yet known, and perhaps never will be till we see it all in retrospect, in heaven.

Our Lady is our spiritual mother. Here we are on safe ground. If we ponder on that fact, work out its implications, act on it, we shall be sure of ‘thinking with the Church sentire cum Ecclesia. Our earthly mothers give us life, earthly life, though they do not create our souls. Mary gives us spiritual life—she is called Mediatrix of all graces but she does not give us grace as from herself, for it is God's own gift.

The idea is current that virtue and intelligence have little to do with each other; the idea implied in the line of the song, ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever'. We may readily agree that virtue has little do with mere smartness, or with that slick mental dexterity so much admired in the lower reaches of the commercial world; but it is certain doctrine that mature, adult virtue cannot dispense with intelligence since the will is the executive or directive faculty of the intellect.

The planning directive virtue of the moral life is prudence, and it is an intellectual virtue in the sense that its seat Is the intellect, and its function is to teach us how to act, applying general principles to conduct here and now in given concrete circumstances. It enables us above all else to keep the end or reason of action in view.

The early Church, all over the world, in perfect agreement, always greeted God's Mother in this angelic manner: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace'. And our Rarest ancestors, following in pious harmony the hallowed tashion of their forefathers, sang the ‘Hail Mary’ everywhere and at all times. They thought by reverently honouring his Mother to make themselves very pleasing to the heavenly King. They knew no more fitting way of paying her this honour than Stating the respect and distinctions decreed and bestowed upon her according to his good pleasure by God himself. This was to do her honour on the day that his divine Majesty wished so greatly to honour the rest of mankind this Virgin as to become man himself. Holy greeting! Genuine praises! Splendid and unique homage! The great God inspired them; a great angel pronounced them; a great evangelist recorded them; the earliest ages have used them; our forefathers have taught them to us.

The Virgin enjoys, like her Son, a position of unique pre-eminence in Islamic legend in general and the Koran in particular. Many of the traits with which the story of her life is embellished derive from apocryphal sources, but are nevertheless of the utmost interest in filling in the gaps in the canonical narrative of the Blessed Virgin's life.

In the Koranic version of the angel's salutation, the superiority of Mary (Arabic, 'Mariam'), whom God had 'chosen and purified, over all the women of mankind' (3, 42) is proclaimed. She is even made to share with her Son the singular distinction of being a 'divine sign unto the generations' (21, 91). In popular legend, however, this preminent position of the Virgin is sometimes disputed and so she is made to share this honour with four other women, who include the two favourite wives of Muhammad and his dearest daughter, Fatimah, from whom the 'noble House of the Prophet' descends.

In the course of twenty centuries the simple message of Christ has developed in many directions, like the mustard-seed of the Gospel. Dogma, moral theology; canon law, administration and organization have branched out, together, into a gigantic system which gives the impression of providing all the answers the world needs become heaven on earth.

The only answer the system does not contain is the personal answer of each soul to its Maker. That is the soul's own and exclusive preserve. It also happens to be to be the only answer that really matters. St Paul made that abundantly clear in his statement on the nature of true love (I Cor. 13). The worth of the whole system, its vitality, its measure and stature in terms of final redemption, all this depends ultimately on the individual soul's response to Christ and his Church. Tiaras, honours, demonstrations, movements, vestments or medals will not be restored at the Last Judgment to cover our personal nakedness.

The next clause in the ‘Our Father’ that presents itself is ‘Lead us not into temptation'. The beginning of the ‘Our Father’ is a prayer, not so much that his will might be done directly as that we may really and truly wish it to be done. I ask to be enlightened, that my will may be strengthened, that I may always want to do Your will’, I want it as perfectly as I know I shall want it in heaven.

From ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ onwards, we pray for protection from sin, from the danger of falling away from God. We are so liable to be drawn away by the fascination of trivialities. I ought to want even to deprive myself of perfectly innocent pleasures in this world if thereby God's Will be better done. And I want, too, to be protected from falling into sin. Why is it that we ask, ‘Forgive us our trespasses'? Why is it that we make that petition? Because we are aware that since sin came into the world it has spread itself all over the world.

To say that Dom Rembert Sorg's Holy Work disappoints the hopes it arouses, is not to deny that it was an essay well worth writing. It attempts to show the relevance of the monastic tradition concerning manual labour not only for the rejuvenation of the monastic life itself but also for the solution of the problems of Christian labour in a pagan society. Let it be said at once that its claim to present a theological rather than an historical justification of its approach is somewhat exaggerated. It assembles a number of reflections which have a theological bearing, but they are not built into a cumulative and cogent argument, a weakness which reveals itself clearly in the important final chapter on the laity. To those not already favour. ably disposed to the author's thesis, its presentation will seem uncomfortably divided between two methods, neither of which is adequately used for it dispenses with a detailed historical treatment without compensating for it by a sufficiently judicious theoretical one.