If a reasonably well-instructed Catholic were asked to say what the New Testament meant to him, his answer might be somewhat as follows: The New Testament is a highly interpretative but historically true account first of what Jesus Christ was and said and did, secondly of the effect which this had and continues to have on his believers, on mankind in general and on the powers of heaven and earth, thirdly of the final consummation of Christ's work and Christ's words, in which this present age will one day be terminated. The divine meaning of what Jesus was and said and did explicitates itself through the human faculties of his own chosen teachers by the power of the Holy Spirit. The divine truth that is Jesus Christ projects itself beyond the spacetime dimension of his earthly life into the transcendent dimension of written words on a page.

Since the Holy See is involved in liturgical reform, we naturally ought to assume that at least in the minds of the scholars and pastors who are engaged in it, the work is relevant. The details of this reform are obviously chosen for pastoral reasons. In other words the concern was definitely and decidedly one of the spiritual welfare of ordinary Catholics, not only of an elite of archaeologists, historians and those who use their missals with understanding and devotion. This pastoral concern is the one thing all liturgical reforms have in common. Damasus I was probably the pope who established the vernacular Latin, Gregory I remade the calendar and the music, Gregory VII stabilized the Franco-Roman form and Trent froze the best available text in its present form. Thus we must assume that the recent changes were supposed to be relevant to the spiritual growth of the average more or less instructed faithful.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost can be seen to have fulfilled several currents of Old Testament prophecy and symbolism. As the spirit inspired the heroes of Israel andled them to victory over Israel's enemies, we can see the Spirit working in Christ's victory over the prince of this world and the Christian's victory over evil. Or, again, just as the spirit of God hovered over the primal chaos rendering it obedient to the ordering word of God, so the Spirit is at work now bringing the new heavens and the new earth into being, the redeemed world out of darkness to the light of the final day. Or the spirit is a fire of purification, or the refreshing waters the nomad depends on in the wastelands. But there is another aspect which it may be worthwhile winging out in this age of liturgical revival, the connection of the spirit with prophecy, with one stage of prophecy in particular.

For a Catholic the main lines of the Christian faith are as certain as, if less demonstrable than, the law of gravity. This attitude of mind is not only part of the concept of faith, which in itself excludes doubt, but a psychological characteristic of ‘being a Catholic', considered as a state. However lightly any Catholic may sit to his religious obligations, their existence, and the existence of a determinate authority with the right to loose and bind, is generally acknowledged, even if only with a snarl; and when it is denied there is something in the quality of the denial that tends to stress the fact denied. The idea of the Church has a precedence in individual lives as fundamental as the symbolic rock on which it is founded. It is not just a case of knowing all the answers.

Fr Bouyer is never superficial, but it is a pity that his profound thought should not be expressed with more clarity and economy. This is particularly true of'an essay on the place of the Virgin Mary in Christian theology and its significance for humanity,' since a subject of such maystery and delicacy suffers in its impact on the reader from a very analytical and somewhat heavy and repetitive treatment. Nevertheless the basic thought of this book is of great value, particularly at this time when much attention is necessarily given to the subject of sexuality. Fr Bouyer faces questions which arise in many minds and, in the light of the scriptural exegesis of the early church and of the gospel account of the place of our Lady in the work of redemption, he strives to provide answers on the subjects of sex, virginity, marriage and the family as seen in the light of revelation.