Centenaries are interesting events for they show that, if we give time time, it performs a double function. In the first place, the lapse of a lengthy period acts like a sieve, eliminating the dross and allowing only the finest to survive. Then a distance of time acts also like a distance in space; it enables us to view in perspective that which is too big to be seen close up.

For the proper appreciation of a man like St De La Salle, a hundred years was a minimum. In fact, it is only now, as the tercentenary of his birth approaches, that he is really coming into his own. The cloud of brilliant nonentities who crowded the forefront of the stage in his day has disappeared, and he is beginning to emerge so that we can see him in his true proportions.

In appraising the order and internal correspondence of the faith and human reason, St Augustine had used a phrase, in epigrammatic summary, which not only described his personal discovery and that of every convert to the Church, but also correctly stated the right causal sequence of these correlatives, Faith and Reason in their continuous development: per fidem venitur ad cognitionem. The phrase may even provide some explanation how philosophy even within its own sphere, needs and may receive assistance from the supernatural truths revealed by God. The student of Aristotle's metaphysics is often tempted to wonder why it was that the philosopher, who so clearly understood the first principles of reason and causality, and so explicitly deduced from them the existence of the First Mover and the Primal Intellect.

The sacred food of the holy Eucharist was pretigured for us in olden times by a heavenly bread called Manna, which God rained down upon our forefathers. This heavenly food had six characteristic qualities or properties, all of which are also present spiritually in our eucharistic food.

The first characteristic of the heavenly bread was that God caused it to drop down from Heaven in a marvellous manner, contrary to the laws of nature. Concerning this God said to our forefathers: It will rain down bread from heaven, for when they arose each morning it lay everywhere on the ground outside their tents, like newly fallen snow. Of this same Manna the prophet says: 'God opened the gates of Heaven and rained down Manna. In like fashion our Lord gives us the bread of his Body in marvellous manner, contrary to the laws of nature, and comes down to us from heaven. Thus God says: I am the living bread that comes from heaven'.

And therefore, good Lord, sith it is so that I may not nor can not have no good thought be it never so little a thought but if I have it of thee, as thou sayest thyself: Sine me nihil potestis facere. Therefore, Lord, I knowledge well that thou art of my soul both the door and the key, as thy gospel saith: Ego sum ostium. And Holy Church clepith thee the key, saying O clavis David, O thou Jesu the key of David. And sithen good Lord I am of un-power and thou art the door and the key, therefore my sweet lord now at this time I fall down to thy majesty, knowing that I am not worthy to lift up mine eyes towards thee for the multitude of my sins, but with a meek will I say Domine labia mea aperies, Lord thou shalt open my lips with the key of thy mercy, and so come in and let in thyself into mine heart, thy privy chamber, I Pray thee Lord.

Quite often the modem type of spirituality is partially condemned as subjective and introverted, as too self-conscious to be fully God-conscious. No doubt some truth lies in this accusation; for the whole renaissance and post-renaissance attitude of mind as exhibited in philosophy, science, theology, has been centred on human experience and the analysis of human life and values. Perhaps this was what Kierkegaard had in mind when he wrote The Present Age, saying that it is killing itself with reflection, that even the children who should typify the middle ages in their direct and outgoing lives are often precocious, consuming with the rest of European grownups an 'enormous amount of scruple and deliberation'. The accusation of beiug too self-analytical and reflective has often been made against the great Spanish mystical writers.

In response to the crying need of the present day a large number of new religious associations have sprung up during the last few years. On one hand the appeal of the interior life in the midst of a materialistic and superficial world, and ou the other the urgent need of apostolic work, have brought into being a new type of society adapted to modern circumstances. We describe here a Spanish institution, the Teresian Institute, which has already existed for thirty-seven years and which can be seen today as a flourishing member of the apostolate.

We walked steadily down the long, straight road, a Roman road no doubt, from La Pommeray where we had been to attend the 'peasants Mass' at the little hamlet in the apple country up above Lisieux. We had heard the new vernacular messe des Paysans sung by the J.A.C. (Jeunesse Agricole Chrétienne—Young Catholic Farmers). Only the creed was in Latin. At the offertory we saw a procession such as is suggested in Pius XII's encyclical Mediator Dei. A young man came in with a cross made up from ears of freshly harvested wheat (it was Sunday, August 7th, and the patronal feast of this church of St Lawrence was being kept), then another followed with a model of a chalice and hosts outlined upon it, then a third came in with a bunch of grapes in a bag.