August the 23rd of this year marks the centenary of the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites by which Pius IX instituted the feast of the Sacred Heart as a common feast for the whole Church. His successor Pius XII takes this opportunity to write his latest encyclical letter in order to explain and defend what has become such a popular devotion of the faithful during the past century. But it is a devotion which has had a much longer history than that, as the Pope is at pains to prove; indeed he here maintains that fundamentally it is an ancient and traditional devotion of the faithful, the only thing new about it being the new form it has taken on during the past three centuries owing to the influence of certain holy men and women. It is this new form which gives reason for the apologetic or defensive character of the encyclical.

A natural division of the fourteen stations of the cross lies simply in this: that according to the arrangement usually adopted in churches the first seven stations are a journey out from the sanctuary, the last seven a journey back. The division lies between the second fall arid the meeting with the women of Jerusalem; and it is natural that it should fall there for this reason too, that in the touching sequence of stations four to six Christ has given us, through Mary in the first place and then through Simon and Veronica, all that pertains to our own cross’ bearing in this life: the share of his burden and the likeness to himself bearing it. After that, immediately, he falls for the second time as if emptied of strength by his gift. The seventh station has the nature of a conclusion, but what is concluded is only the first half of the way: its outward journey.

Time and again we have been urged, as individuals, in our homes, in our schools, and everywhere, to say the Rosary. Surely we must now begin to put the stress on praying the Rosary. We are concerned about the very soul of this devotion, and so about the immensely more important part of any Rosary. As the soul is always more important than the body, so too meditation of the Rosary should always have priority over any merely material recitation of the beads. This should be obvious to all. Yet how often do we slip into careless ways of talking. It is very easy for a priest to tell you, ‘for your penance, say a decade of the Rosary'. Or, perhaps, two friends may be passing a church, and one will say to the other: ‘Let's drop in and say a Rosary…’

Worship is the outcome of living faith, the expression of a sincere conviction in some external and visible form. There is innate in every society and individual the urge to communicate and share conviction. Good naturally spreads itself in companionship. The Church is a society both human and divine; divine in its origin and support and human in its composition. It gives effect to this urge in two main streams, the liturgy and private devotion. As a society its worship is found in the liturgy, but the individual members of that society express themselves in a variety of private devotions. These two streams are nevertheless vitally connected. The liturgy of its very nature and because it is the official and common worship of the body, politic remains somewhat static and is carefully prescribed ano ruled by laws.

An article on ‘The Divine Office as a Method of Prayer’ in The Life of the Spirit, August 1951, by Dom Bede Griffiths, impressed me as having much to say that is of use to all Christians both lay and religious, especially in these times when a slow but deep-seated revolution in spirituality is taking place. Perhaps, however, the most significant sentence of all comes in the opening paragraph. After telling the story of the young priest who studied the psalms so carefully that to him they ceased to be prayers at all, the writer says:

Hugh of Saint-Victor's Commentary on Denys’ Celestial Hierarchies profoundly influenced the writers on mystical theology of the twelfth and following centuries. Richard is greatly indebted to him and makes use of his ideas and his examples. The following extract from the section on the Seraphim in Book VI of the Commentary (chapter VII in Denys) shows how Hugh transferred what Denys said of Angels to human love and contemplation. The insistence on love rather than knowledge as the means of union and contemplation far outstrips what Denys thought and is responsible for the whole, of the later trend of mystical theories. This passage is the source of many of Richard's illustrations in the Benjamin Major. Hugh's commentary on this section is longer than that on any other part of the work and he obviously lets himself go freely on the subject which was dearest to his heart.