There is nothing new to say about Lourdes. The statement ment is not so superfluous as it seems, for in a centenary year the need is not so much to find fresh superlatives, or even to quote spectacular statistics, as to return to the simple, original fact and find its essential meaning once more. This is far from easy to do: it is as difficult indeed as it is to remenibe the grotto in the modern town of Lourdes. And the analogy is not inexact. What men make of the marvellous can reflect all their cupidity and stupidity, too. We should not under-estimate the effect of the horrors that surround Lourdes on those who may be anxious to discern its truth but are baffled by its setting—in the written record as well as in the piety stalls and the hotels. And the bluff apologetic of the hearty publicists—‘I really like all those shops’—is far from reassuring.

It was Fr Henry St John who suggested the title. The term ‘eirenic’ has some advantages over the term ‘ecumenical, though the latter is of course the more widely used. ‘Ecumenical', if understood etymologically, and if understood otherwise than the word ‘Catholic', suggests that there is a theology which is general, over against a theology which is particular. In the context of modern conditions, that could mean there is a supradenominational Christian theology, over against sectarian or local theologies. Such a suggestion would be disturbing to the Catholic as being out of harmony with the divinely instituted unity of the Church.

There is, of course, a possibility of adapting the principle here involved to Catholic theology. One can, and must, distinguish between the theological opinions of a school and the universal teaching of the Church.

As Dominicans we pride ourselves on having a special devotion to our Lady. If that means that we consider ourselves to have more devotion to her than other orders or other Catholics generally, then our pride is foolish and based on a manifest untruth. It is hard to think of a single order or organization in the Church which doesn't pride itself on a special devotion to the Mother of God. But surely we are not reduce to infantile competition on ‘who loves Mother most'. What our special devotions ought to mean is that we all love her in different, characteristic, ways. And our characteristic Dominican way, I would suggest, of loving our Lady, is to give her the service of our minds as well as of our affection.

If I shall be lifted up, I shall draw all things to myself, said our Lord speaking of the new life to be given to men by his redemption. ‘All things’—every faculty of man, every from of human experience; indeed, everything that man does and is, save for sin alone, is drawn into Christ and into his life. Apart from sin there is nothing which cannot partake in and be an expression of the eternal life of Christ endlessly renewing itself in time and place by the sacraments of his presence. ‘This is the bread that gives life to the world.’ And what is this bread? ‘This is my body.’ The bread is Christ himself. And what is the life? It is his life—‘I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me’. Without Christ there can be no life.

The title of this address may sound to you a little tough and abstract, yet it is a good subject for this afternoon’s meeting because you are all parents, and each parent has a Person, often several persons, your children, in whom you are deeply interested, and for whose welfare and education you are personally responsible, since God has chosen you to co-operate with him in bringing them into being, and in preparing them for their independent lire as persons in the world.

Now I am not a parent and it would be impertinent for me to try to teach you your job as parents in detail. What I want to do this afternoon is to remind you of certain basic principles underlying the true notion of education. Principles are important; without them we can never really understand any problem, and this is a problem it is supremely important to understand thorghly.

We have seen in earlier articles how the Church takes natural, human things, such as water and oil, and supernaturalizes them by the power of God. In the technical language of sacramental theology the natural sign is called the matter, the words which raise it up and determine it to bring about that which it signifies, the form. But it would be quite wrong to imagine an implied contrast between material and immaterial in the normal sense of the words. In the sacrament of penance the natural element is human sorrow for sin, a turning from evil to good: it is transformed into that supernatural love of God which is charity, through words of absolution spoken by a priest who has been given the necessary faculties by the bishop.

The Holy Family is our God-given model of domestic perfection, but because the gospel tells us so astonishingly little of the hidden years we have to build up our exemplar with the aid of thought and imagination. There is no dearth of devotional writing on the subject but we may find that, though suitable for pious reading or for abstract meditation, it does not lend to practical application. We are in danger of falling between two stools. If we are theologically minded we cannot forget that the Holy Family was unique: it has no counterpart in our own experience. We cannot conceive what life was like in a family in which one Person was divine, one sinless and one, to say the least, a very great saint.

The Bible is a book, or rather the book above all others, to which we feel that we need no introduction. It is found lying everywhere; we all know of it; and still more have so many of its phrases and personalities in our everyday talk, that we can be quite surprised to find they are ‘from the and begin to wonder just how much we do take from it.

But perhaps it is unfortunate that we have no introduction; for the Bible is not only well known and quoted, as Shakespeare's works are among English-speaking people; but has a special place in our minds, unlike any other book. It is venerated, or ridiculed; held up, for respect or derision; and it has that position because of what is said about it. The Bible, it is said, is the Word of God.

To trace the angelology of Dante back to all its sources would be an exacting task for a scholar. His mind was like a crystal; strong, and exquisitely polished, and reflecting light from many facets. From two books, however, much of this light came, and from their gift he found the luminous material with which he clothed his angels. These books are the Bible, and the works of the supposed Dionysius the Areopagite. The Bible is, of course, the supreme authority for any conception of the angelic nature—the ‘Master-Light of all our seeing', the Force that moulds even when most unrecognized, and Dante's imagination no doubt found its prime source of inspiration there. The first thing we learn, however, is that angels are never described in the Old Testament.

Educated Catholics today are at least dimly aware that considerable changes are taking place among Protestants in regard to the problems set by Christian disunity. It is doubtful, however, whether the majority, even of educated Catholics, know just how considerable these changes are; still less do they envisage them as important. In this paper I propose to outline some of the facts concerning these changes and to attempt to interpret their significance for us.

From the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Constant fragmentation became a commonplace and accepted condition of Protestantism. On the continent, from the first, the two great movements initiated by Luther and Calvin were antagonistic, and in due course each produced its sub-divisions. Here in Britain Scottish Presbyterianism suffered, in the course of its history, at least a threefold fission, and the Elizabethan settlement of Anglicanism produced a number of non-conformist bodies, Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists; and these in turn soon began to sub-divide.

The reflections offered here have properly to do with the theology of the Holy Trinity rather than with the Trinity itself; their purpose is to consider how we advance in our theological understanding of the revelation of the Holy Trinity communicated to us by Scripture and Tradition, by pointing to those movements of our spp iritual life which are especially relevant to our theological understanding of the faith. St Augustine, in the later books of his de Trinitate, was the first to dopt this procedure explicitly; and his has been the determining influence in all Latin theology after him. But the later theology so much took his Preliminary investigations for granted that it is not easy for the reader of a moderm dogmatic treatise dealing with the Holy Trinityto understand the truly religious and spiritual interest of the theology of the Trinity: he may admire the technical Ingenuity of the solutions proposed, the sustained intellectual effort and the scrupulous integrity required to present within manageable limits the essential Catholic doctrines, but he may fail to enter with a quick sympathy into the inner life of such and investigation.

As we have seen in the first half of this article the Old Testament ends, apart from the historical interlude of the Machabees, with the Prophets and their vision of all in God's hands. The worst that could happen, destruction, deportation, or death, is understood, as punishment from God. It is a marvellous vision, all the more so, first of all, for being in our World, and very much in our world; for the prophetic career is like any other, with its ups and downs. The book of Jonas, for instance ('Dove'; but also ‘Destroyer’), shows us some of the downs.

We are told that Jonas has a message for Nineveh. Now no one likes to go into a strange town, especially with unpleasant messages; so Jonas runs away in a ship. There is a storm; the sailors cast lots to find the unlucky one; and the lot falls, of course, upon Jonas. He is thrown overboard, at his own request, in fact; as the waters close over his head he must think, ‘At least, it's the end of that message.’

Those who accuse the Church of mariolatry would dowell to study the history of mariology. Of our Lady more than of any other creature it can be truly said that she has had greatness thrust upon her; true, she foresaw it, and humbly stated it when she sang, ‘Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed’; but the honour, the glory, the veneration were not of her seeking, and when they came to her it was first of all as a result of defending the truth about her son; and as they grew and grew through the ages their effect was, as she would wish, to increase men's love and understanding of her Son; while on die other hand attempts to destroy her cultus and deny her greatness have ended in a denial of the divinity of her Son. She began by declaring, ‘Behold the handmaid—the chatted—of the Lord’; and her words summarize not only her life and personality but the story of her cultus as well.