’The Revelation of Jesus Christ.’ Those are the first words of John's message to the persecuted Churches. He wished to give them a teaching that would enlighten and comfort them. Although not new, it would be more developed on the person and role of Jesus, ‘the faithful witness, Firstborn among the dead, Prince of the kings of the earth’ (1, 5). To give them confidence in the midst of trials, he would make manifest the active presence and entire mastery in temporal history of the risen Lord.

’Hath God cast away his people? God forbid! … Goo hath not cast away his people which he foreknew… Even so at this present time there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.’ Thus wrote Saint Paul to the faithful at Rome: to those who had accepted Christ as the promised Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of mankind. For Christ did not found the Church independently of Israel but used the faithful of that nation in the establishing of it, as the prophet foretold: ‘For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make to stand before me, saith the Lord: so shall your seed stand and your name.’ (Isaias 66, 22.) During his lifetime he prepared his new Kingdom out of the material of the old, and if the old seemed to reject him it was he who in reality rejected those who refused to acknowledge him as Christ and Lord. So he had charged his Apostles, saying: ‘And whosoever will not receive you: when you go out of that city shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.’

It seems reasonable enough to have a Church calendar, It seems obvious that the chief events of our Lord's life should be arranged round several pivotal feasts and the whole neatly distributed throughout the year. All healthy lives have a rhythm in harmony with the seasons of the year. We plant, cultivate, harvest, let the soil pause in a rest, then begin over again. We mark off anniversary dates of births, deaths, victories, catastrophes. Some are family affairs, but those of national importance are celebrated with a regularity and a protocol which is a test of our patriotism—lest we ourselves forget or lest we fail to pass on the torch to the next generation.

The latter years of a Catholic who has held the faith from birth, and practised it consistently on an ordinary working level, represent a period when much that supported the soul falls away, when former spiritual helps are shed and life is left with only the necessities for carrying on. As on the natural physical level these years are a stern test of the individual, of his traditions, good sense, the breadth of view experience has brought him, so the soul taking stock of its spiritual resources looks back to the things that have remained and receives its last challenge of final perseverance. Thus the sum total of what life has taught on both levels lies open now in behaviour and reaction to circumstance.

To thee dear brother in Christ our Lord send the spirit of counsel and of ghostly strength. Thou writest to me that thou art troubled and tarried of thy might and married in thy conscience for thy shrift, for thou would shrive thee plainly of ail thy sins and thou cannot, and therefore thy grace is withdrawn from thee. And thou makest this skill thereto. Since shrift is the gate of all the sacraments and of grace also, and thou mayst not come to clear and plenary confession, how shalt thou then come to any other grace? And therefore I wot well thy soul is tormented and thy mind is in great bitterness. Forsooth nevertheless our Lord Jesus shall soften thy sorrow by his mercy when him likes. The sorrow that thou sufferest is great, nevertheless it is wholesome. Look that thou be strong of grace neither mistrust nor despair. Thou feelest thyself full of pride, thou canst not void nor tell it. Thou shrivest thy sins as they come to mind in time of confession, and nevertheless thou trowest not that thou art verily shriven.