Much has recently been written in the popular press about that vast army of women who live on their own. Following the publication of such articles, a number of these people hotly denied that they are lonely but many others admitted that their loneliness is so great that it is the overwhelming aspect of their lives. Let us hope that no Catholic women were amongst those who made this sad admission: there is certainly no need for them to do so.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, to be lonely is to be ‘solitary, isolated, unfrequented, companionless'. What an impossible situation for the practising Catholic! Frequent reception of Holy Communion and a thoughtful pondering over the doctrine of the Indwelling must immediately prevent sucn abysmal loneliness. The woman who lives alone has perhaps more chance than many others to think frequently how the whole of her life is a partnership with Christ.

Beloved friend in the heart of Jesus Christ. The left hand of the Bridegroom be under your head and his right hand embrace you! I am compelled, dearly beloved, by the urgency of your love for me to write something about charity for you, and to presume beyond my powers and far beyond my low station; indeed I seem to be pouring out from my emptiness and to be giving what I do not possess. It is only with difficulty I tell you that my mind consents to say something about it, for I feel that neither my heart nor my tongue can speak of this subject worthily. How can a man speak of love who does not love or feel the power of love? There is abundant matter on other subjects in books, but this is altogether an inward thing or it is nowhere, for it does not translate the secrets of its delights from outside to Within, but transmits them from within outwards.

Beloved friend in the heart of Jesus Christ. The left hand of the Bridegroom be under your head and his right hand embrace you! I am compelled, dearly beloved, by the urgency of your love for me to write something about charity for you, and to presume beyond my powers and far beyond my low station; indeed I seem to be pouring out from my emptiness and to be giving what I do not possess. It is only with difficulty I tell you that my mind consents to say something about it, for I feel that neither my heart nor my tongue can speak of this subject worthily. How can a man speak of love who does not love or feel the power of love? There is abundant matter on other subjects in books, but this is altogether an inward thing or it is nowhere, for it does not translate the secrets of its delights from outside to Within, but transmits them from within outwards.

The Mass, and the beauty of the Liturgy of the Mass, was one of the forces which overcame my struggles against the grace of God, and pulled me into the Church. And I could not get to know the Liturgy of the Mass without wanting to know more about the Church's official daily prayer, the jewelled setting of the daily sacrifice, the Divine Office. So, as a convert, newly received, I began to find out more about the Office and attend its choral recitation as and when I could. Then came my reception into the Dominican Third Order and the obligation to say our Lady's Hours, which, simpler and almost unvarying, are yet built on the same plan as the longer Office and provide an ideal guide and introduction to it. Later still came the possession of a Dominican breviary, the first tentative attempts at saying the Office on the bigger feasts, and eventually the time when I found that it was not whether I would or would not say the Divine Office daily, but simply that I could not bring myself to leaving off so doing.

After twenty-one years’ commissioned service in the army, the writer's feelings are largely of regret. Regret at opportunities missed, duties neglected or perfunctorily performed; in short a lively sense of failure.

The failure was in part due to ignorance, and it is in the hope of assisting young officers that this paper is written. Si jeunesse savait…. This is not the place for detailed statistics, even were there any accurate ones available, but this paper is written with the following premises in mind:

1. 1. Catholics are about 14 per cent of the army.

2. 2. Of Catholics in the army, very approximately, one third have abandoned their faith, one third practise intermittently, and one third practise as fully as circumstances and human frailty permit.

3. 3. There is about one priest to two thousand Catholic soldiers.

4. 4. The general religious climate in the services is the same as that in the country at large. Most soldiers would call themselves Christian, though on analysis, as the Incarnation is regarded as an improbable theory at best, a vague theism, is perhaps a better term.

There are three kinds of religious. The first refuse their senses nothing. If they are cold, they warm themselves; if they are hungry they eat; if the thought of some diversion comes to mind, they take it without deliberation; they are always intent on self-satisfaction, and do not know what mortification is in practice. They perform their duties without any interior spirit, without relish and without fruit.

These are in danger of mortal sin. Sometimes they are in a state of sin without realizing it, because they never seriously enter into themselves and their examination of conscience is extremely superficial. In this state of inattention innumerable objects pass through their mind each day, their heart is carried away and seems intoxicated with the turmoil of exterior matters; it is ceaselessly deceived by the illusions of nature and the devil, and it blindly follows their impulses.

By saying redeemer, not creator, he is clearly announcing one who appeared amongst us in the flesh, long after he had created all things, in order to redeem us from captivity, one who delivered us by his sufferings from never-ending death. And notice with what strong faith in the power of Christ's godhead he pulls himself together; just as St Paul says: ‘Even though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God’ (2 Cor. xiii, 4), so Job says here: ‘I know that my redeemer lives', as much as to say, more openly, ‘Any unbeliever can know about his being scourged, laughed at, knocked about, crowned with a crown of thorns, smeared with spittle, crucified, and dead; but I believe with the certainty of faith and I freely and openly declare that he lives after death. For my redeemer lives, whom the hands of wicked men slew.’

In the state papers of the Kingdom of Aragon is to be found this record: ‘1275. On the day of the Epiphany Raymund Peniafort of Barcelona departed this life in the convent of the Friars Preachers, than whom in Spain at this time there is no more illustrious example of a perfect religious life and longstanding holiness.'

In 1175-76 Raymund was born, probably at Villafranca de Banades, the family estate of the Penafort. His parents came of knightly stock, being descended from the royal family of Aragon.

From childhood, Raymund was serious and mature. Like so many saints and great men of the Dominican Order in its early days. he preferred study to amusement. He was a precocious student and by the time he was twenty years old had graduated in the school at Barcelona and had his own class of pupils to whom he taught the liberal arts, accepting no payment.

Any treatment of the Incarnation would obviously have to give some consideration to the two heresies which have distorted the truth contained in this mystery. At one extreme lies Arianism, which wanted to treat Christ as if he was exclusively human, with the divine about him no more than superimposed by a sort of adoption. At the other extreme is Docetism, which wanted to treat Christ as if he was exclusively divine, with the human about him only a sort of optical illusion. Both are heresies. The truth hes between the two extremes. Christ is the Word of God incarnate, one person in two complete natures, divine and human.

For an article appearing in a number devoted to Bible and Worship, this excursion into speculative theology will appear less enigmatic if it is realized that Christ was not the first time that the Word of God had become flesh.

The is a legend that Giles in his early manhood bartered his soul for a knowledge of the dark secrets of nature with a view to obtaining a position of wealth and rank in the medical world. Setting out for Paris where he hoped to study medicine, he was accosted on the way by a charming stranger who persuaded him to abandon his journey to France and to turn aside to Toledo, where he spent seven years as an apprentice in the art of magic and agreed to trade his soul for the fulfilment of his ambition. He then resumed his journey to Paris where he obtained both riches and fame, performing miracles of healing; but being converted by a frightful vision he returned to Spain and sought the habit of the order at Valencia, where after seven years of the severest penance and the greatest agony of mind on account of his infamous bargain

Verbum caro hie factum est.’ These words are written on the altar in the little Chapel of the Annunciation at Nazareth.

It is the significance of the ‘hie’ inserted into the otherwise familiar phrase which jolts the pilgrim into a sudden realization and awe. ‘Here'—here where he kneels, the Word was made Flesh. The two great columns representing the relevant positions of our Lady and the Angel Gabriel, even the remains of Mary's house itself, which can be seen through a grille in the wall, cannot deflect the attention from that marvellous mystery which here overwhelms the mind with special awe.

We are faced with the same ‘hie’ in the Grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem, where the Latin inscription round the silver star reads, ‘Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary'. A simple statement that sets the mind reeling.

Parallel with the liturgical movement, though less widespread and effective, there has been obvious among Catholics during the last decades a growing concern for the unity of Christians, an anguish that the divisions among Christians present a stumbling block to many who are seeking the truth, a longing that Christ's fervent prayer that ‘all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee’ be realized so that the world may believe in Christ's mission. In France and in Germany this anguish has taken hold of the faithful in a for greater measure than in this country; here there are but a few self-effacing individuals, encouraged by the memory of such men as the Abbé Paul Couturier and Dr Max Josef Metzger, working quietly that Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, become more conscious of the tragic divisions. This annual number off The Life of the Spirit is one fruit of that work.

I. THE SACRAMENTS

THE principal practices which lead to perfection are the sacraments when we approach them with the necessary preparation; yet, curiously enough, this is the very truth which is most neglected. The sacraments give graces which result in the production within us of the effects proper to them: confession brings great purity of heart, Holy Communion close union with God and spiritual fervour in all our actions…. The more you approach the sacraments, the more graces you will receive to share in their effects. But the effects of these sacraments, namely purity of heart and spiritual fervour, are themselves the best preparation we can make to receive them.

A soul which before Holy Communion was in darkness, weak and languishing, but after it becomes enlightened, fervent and strong cannot doubt of the fruit of its communion, because the sacraments’ effect is to give their proper sacramental grace Hence after a good confession the soul receives much light on its interor dispositions, humble and loving contrition, and peace of a quiet conscience.

This is a short psalm, so it can satisfy your listening minds without irking your fasting stomachs. May it feed the soul of every one of us, which is said to be sad by the psalm; sad, it seems to me, because it is fasting in some way, or rather because it is hungry. The Church is hungry, the body of Christ is hungry, that man, the whole Christ, who is all over the world, his head up above and his limbs down below. His voice singing or sighing in all the psalms, happy in hope for the future Or sighing at the sadness of the present, his voice should be well known to all of us, so familiar that we can make it our own. So I won't take up any more time reminding you who is speaking here. Let each of us be in the body of Christ, and so let it be each of us speaking here.

In spite of the title of this talk, I do not propose to say anything about everyday life. It is not merely that I can think of very little of value to say about it; above all I want to avoid absolutely the idea that we should adapt the psalms to our own lives. The psalms are not adaptable. They are a divinely inspired, divinely guaranteed expression of a whole range of religious sentiments which we must take as we find them, take as God left them, however crude or alien to our native ways of thought they may sometimes seem. Our thought in using the psalms for our devotions should be to take them simply as they are, and let them enrich and envigorate our everyday religion. We must try to adapt ourselves to the psalms, not the psalms to ourselves. So I shall confine myself to a few considerations about what the psalms are.