The Home, the Christian home based on the sacramental grace of matrimony, was the theme of one of the last series of sermons preached by Fr Bede Jarrett, O.P., in America. That was in 1929, only a few months before Pius XI's great encyclical on Christian marriage delivered in Rome. Twenty-five years have passed since these sermons were first published and the welcome new edition of the book gives us an opportunity to look back over this epoch which has been characterized by so much discussion and theologizing on the of marriage. With the attack on marriage and the home to such intensity during this century it was inevitable that the Christian should have to think out his position anew in his defence of an intitution so central to his life as a human being and as a sharer in the life of God. During these last twenty-five years in particular there have been many theories which seemed to place the love and companionship of the married couple above that of the family, that is of the children.

The exhumation of the mortal remains of Matt Talbot took place in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on Sunday, 29th June, 1952. His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin presided at the ceremony. The coffin of the Servant of God, when opened, revealed his mortal remains in skeleton form, and the burial shroud which appeared to be a Franciscan habit. In the coffin were also found three chains, three large medals, two crucifixes and portions of a large rosary. The medical experts, having taken the Oath, signed the medical report which will be inserted in the Acts of the Process. The ceremony is part of the Apostolic process of Beatification and Canonisation, and does not in any way anticipate the decision of the Holy See.

What kind of man was this Matt Talbot? What part did the chains, rosary beads and medals, found in his coffin, play in his life?

Matt Talbot was born on 2nd May, 1856, in Dublin. Both parents were pious, and in no way given to drink. They attended their monthly Confraternity Mass and Communion regularly. Twelve children, eight sons and four daughters, resulted from the marriage.

It is appropriate that the centenary of the Order and the establishment of an English noviciate should be hailed by such an excellent publication as The Society of Marie Auxiliatrice. Many people are now acquainted with the life of Blessed Marie Thérèse de Soubiran who died an exile from the Order she had founded, and many believe that this last sad phase of her life laid the foundations of that deep and tender charity for the poor and displaced which now marks her Order. This admirable book captures that spirit and lays it before us in a concise letterpress and numerous excellent pictures reproduced in France by the new heliograph process. After a preface containing extracts from the Holy Father's own address to the nuns of the Society on the occasion of the beatification of their foundress we are given a brief history of the Order.

Mary of Ágreda is an outstanding figure in Spanish history of the seventeenth century and her writings have had a strong, though often unrecognized, influence on the trend of Catholic spirituality for nearly three hundred years. It is not surprising that Faber, with his genius for foreign importation, should have drawn freely on this Spanish mystic; it is more unexpected to meet with Manning's praise. In one of his sermons on the Sacred Heart he says: ‘The Ven. Mary of Ágreda, in a profuse and minute exposition, has taught us the mystery of the deified humanity and the actions and passion of our Blessed Lord. No human genius could have conceived such teaching.’ Such unstinted praise coming from this source may well arouse the curiosity of those to whom La Mίstica Ciudad de Dios is as yet unknown. Those who have not access to the original Spanish will be grateful to Fiscar Marison for his pleasing and accurate rendering into the English tongue. The American publishers are to be congratulated on their well-finished and serviceable reprint.