The Council of Florence, about which I have recently been reading Fr Gill's monumental work, is surely one of the more poignant, and I would say gallant failures of history. I feel also that it has a special interest for me as a Dominican, since the chief spokesman on the Latin Side in the theological debates was the Dominican John Montenero; a Greek Dominican bishop, Andrew Chrysoberges, played a prominent part in the negotiations that preceded and followed the Council; and finally the patriarch Joseph II, who died a few weeks before the union was proclaimed, was buried in the Dominican church of S. Maria Novella.

But for two more substantial reasons it is also of particular significance for subject this evening; it did achieve a union, however precarious and short-lived, between the Latins and the Greeks, and a union elicited from genuine hard discussion of the points at issue between the two Churches; and secondly it really settled once and for all the issue that Was dividing the Latin Church on whether or not a council has authority over the pope.

'Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come’ (2 Cor. 5.17). ‘Neither circumcision or lack of circumcision means anything, but a new creation’ (Gal. 6. 15). Such is St Paul's clear teaching.

The life of a Christian is a new life, a new life in Christ and in the Spirit. We find this divine promise of a newness of life even in the Old Testament, in prophecies which can be said to have announced the mysteries of God's grace in a unique way. In Ezekiel God tells us about the last times, the days of Yahweh, the days in which he will manifest his glory, that is, his living presence among us in this world of ours, the days of the redemption in Christ. ‘Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit’ (Ez. 18.31).

The teaching profession has for a long time been recognized as a normal sphere of influence for women. But even among Catholics, teaching is too often considered as no more than a profession; in other words, simply a means of livelihood requiring a high degree of training or specialized knowledge. It is, in fact, very much more. At this time, when observations and educational theories are current subjects of interest and discussion, it is perhaps worth trying to make some assessment of the teaching vocation to which both lay women and teaching religious are called by God.

It is at last being recognized by both clergy and laity that in these days the term ‘vocation', for so long restricted to the meaning of a call to life in the cloister, has in fact a very much wider sense. Now it is understood, rather, as the call of God to the individual to follow a particular path that he reveals to them.

We were sitting on a hill in the South of France under the blazing sun and quietly listening to these words of St Thérèse: ‘I have recognized my vocation … my vocation is Love … In the heart of the Church I am Love, c'est l'amour seul qui compte'.

At just that time - so I gathered from letters from home - people listening to the wireless were shattered to hear desperate appeals coming through: ‘Help, they are burning everything down… Perhaps we can hold out another hour, send us help … People of the West, don't let us down … our last lines are falling … where are you?’ And then quite suddenly the appeals stopped; there was a terrifying silence.