Christian life is a life of friendship with God, ‘I have called you friends’ (John 15, 5). More, we are called to share the divine life itself in fellowship with Christ and as members of God's family; ‘God is faithful, by whom you are called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord’ (1 Cor. 1, 9). He is our elder brother, ‘the firstborn among many brethren’ (Rom. 8, 29); we receive the spirit of adoption of sons, and are joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8, 15-7).

Every now and then the Church is handed a bouquet, over the fence as it were, by someone outside her fold. Professor Jung has done this and surely we can take it. He tells us that he finds ‘frequency of complexes … highest among the Jews, Protestants come second and Catholics only third’. But what is even more interesting is the reason for this state of things. This is not found specially in the psychological value of confession but rather in the way in which Catholic belief helps a man through the natural psychological crises of ordinary human life. Indeed the professor seems to show that as Christian morals help to keep people out of prisons, so Christian dogma is of value in keeping them out of asylums. For the life of man is normally a progress beginning as a child under the care of its parents passing through various stages till he attains to maturity and becomes himself a parent.

Religiouis life implies certain specific characteristics: the vowed and dedicated life; the three counsels of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; the ordered sequence of Mass, the daily Office and Mental Prayer; with some element of work and recreation at ordered times. We are so much used to the life's being lived in community that we are apt to think the Religious life implies, per se, Community life. But to be precise, this is not so.

Perhaps I shall leave this house soon after Christimas. The circumstances which have compelled us to arrange my transfer to Echt are strongly reminiscent of the conditions at the time I entered. There is, no doubt, an inner link between them.

Tuesday: Seven o'clock; it has been a hot, sweltering day and down through the dusty vineyards of Bordeaux the train, like a caterpillar, has made its way on the last lap of the journey. A courier has said that we will be in Lourdes in twenty minutes and already in other carriages other pilgrims are singing the Ave; in our own compartment, in a formal English way, we remain mute. One of the priests begins to say the rosary to himself and we all follow suit. For the last few minutes we have been winding with the Gave as it runs its twisting course, never having lost sight of it for more than a few seconds.