The subject of the Bible as a whole is the unique divine drama of the creation, fall, redemption and restoration of man, and in this drama God himself plays the central role as author, actor and producer. The drama is a real one, no mere puppet show manipulated by the author, and this means that all those engaged in it have the freedom to tamper with the author's intentions in the interests of their own vanity and pride. They can seek to be masters of the plot rather than servants of it. But this drama is such that no actor in it can ultimately frustrate the author's intentions. They can, for example, ignore the par which he is playing in his own works, but they cannot ultimately suppress it. Even when the play seems to be getting hopelessly out of hand, the author-producer has the will and the power to engage the most unruly sub-plot for his main design, which remains always evident in each new situation.

In Writing of marriage and prayer I am writing of normal, happy marriage. In a marriage which is unhappy for physical, mental, or spiritual reasons, through the fault of either partner, or both, or neither, there may be great holiness, but this holiness will not be according to the pattern of sanctity which God designs for marriage. It is of the life of prayer within pattern that I want to write, using the word ‘prayer‘ in its widest sense of the whole relationship of the dedicated soul with God. It is a pity that the saints are so little help in this matter. Most married saints either lost their partners early, or struggled towards sanctity through the suffering caused by an unhappy marriage. There are exceptions: St Margaret of Scotland and St Elizabeth of Hungary are great examples, but we know so little of their private lives that for practical purposes they are not much help. St Thomas More's first marriage seems to have been happy, but his young wife died early, and his second wife was never more than a well-loved house-keeper, whom he seems to have found on occasion rather irritating.

The function of the philosopher, or part of it, is to explain in terms of his system, the mysteries of time and space. The function of the scientist, or part of it, is to explore increasingly efficient techniques for manipulating time and space. The function of the theologian is to transmit a reasonable account of revealed religious doctrine and practice to all men, irrespective of time and space. As Karl Adam particularizes it for our own times the aim of theology is to ‘render the spirit of Catholicism intelligible to the contemporary mind'. (Sidelights, Sheed & Ward, p. 2.) Sometimes the theologian is distracted, sometimes disquieted by what is happening about him in the schools of the philosophers and in the laboratories of the scientists. Considering amplitude of his task, it ought not to cause undue surprise if, occasionally, he seems neglectful of spatio-temporal affairs which loom so large in the minds of everybody else. Yet to him also, time and space are amongst the mysteries of human existence, though not what calls ‘entitatively supernatural’ mysteries.

And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul’ (Gen. 2, 7). Since that moment of creation when God raised Adam above all mere animal life by the communication of his own divine life, breath has helped to build a bridge between two worlds, the seen and the unseen, the world within and the world without. Breath—ruach, animus, spiritus— the life-giving medium, creates unity between body and soul, matter and spirit. It is that breath of God which moves and inspires, man: Spiritus est qui vivificat. The opening chapters of Genesis are perfectly paralleled and reach perfect fulfilment in the closing chapters of St John's Gospel.

With the last war fresh in our minds, we are accustomed to think of prisoners as harshly treated victims of international disorder or unwilling captives of social justice. But here in St Paul we find a famous preacher rejoicing in his bonds, glad to be fettered since these chains set free the Word of God. Because he is in captivity other apostles have gone forth with greater boldness to proclaim the Gospel, while from the fertile mind and burning heart of the imprisoned apostle issue the glowing words of some of his finest epistles. Even today there are many who are willing to be prisoners for God, to 'wear chains in the Lord's service' (Eph. 4, 1. Knox version). Urged by their love of God and of souls, contemplative religious gladly disappear behind the bars in an enclosed Order. Captives indeed in a material sense, spiritually bound yet further by their three solemn vows, they experience the true freedom of the children ot God. The willing holocaust of their lives can be seen as reparation for the atrocities, committed against the unwilling victims of modern warfare and those bound under the tyranny of totalitarian rule. The glory of their lives is best described by St Thomas in the second part of the Summa: 'Those are called religious … who give themselves up entirely to the divine service as offering a holocaust to God'. 'Now the perfection of man consists & adhering wholly to God' (Ila-IIae, 187, 1).

When our Lord said ‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice', he did not mean, presumably, those who are out to get justice, agitators demanding justice for the workers, or men determined to defend the sacred rights of property. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst, not after the rights of justice, but after the virtue of justice, who are eager to do, not to receive justice. These are the ones who shall be filled.

This virtue of justice, being just, is not only a matter for judges or persons in authority. It is the very first virtue required of every Christian. And it is also very last virtue, the one that will be looked for by your judge at the end. On whether you are truly just or not will depend whether you go to heaven or to hell. Hell for the unjust, heaven for the just; the just to the right and the wicked to the left, and these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting.

It is a commonplace to say that charity is the fulfilment of the law. Did not St Paul say that charity is ‘the bond of perfection’ ? Charity is to the soul as the soul is to the life of the body, since it is the well-spring of our love of God, which in its expansiveness goes out to all others who claim our love. The love of God cannot stand still if it is not to become retarded and to lose its grip on the spirit. ‘In the way of God, he who does not go forward falls backwards.'l It is within human power, with the grace of God, to desire a greater love of God. As St Francis of sales said, ‘The disgusted sick man has no appetite for eating, yet has he an appetite to have an appetite; he desires no meat, but he desires to desire it.'2

Mary, virgin yet a mother. Here on earth we can only hold her memory sacred while heaven rejoices at her presence. And in the same way heaven is the true home of every good which we on earth can only imagine to ourselves, we, who have to be content with a mere foretaste of that bliss which will satisfy every desire. In heaven there is true life, here life only in name. Lord, you endure for ever, your name is no forgotten as generation follows generation to the grave—generations of men, not angels, So if we want to know why a name and a memory is all we have while the reality is present in heaven, we turn to the Gospel where our Lord says: ‘This, then, is to be your prayer: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name’. Faith speaks here, reminding us in the very first words that we are the adopted children of God, and that our life on earth is only a pilgrimage.

Dearly beloved, the whole world is a partaker of all sacred solemnities, and love of the one faith demands that if honour is given any event, touching the salvation of all men, it would be celebrated everywhere with common rejoicing. Truly should today's festival be honoured, in addition to the reverence which it has merited from all the world, with a special and unique exultation in our City so that in the place where the death of the chief Apostles was made glorious there on the day of their martyrdom may exist a pre-eminence of joy. For these are the men through whom the good tidings of Christ brought a new light to you, O Rome, and you, Mistress of Error in the past, became the Disciple of Truth. These are your holy fathers and true shepherds who founded you so as to place you in heavenly kingdoms, establishing you much better and much more successfully than they by whose zeal the first foundations of your walls were laid. In fact, the one who gave you his name defiled you with his brother's blood.

If we look at contemporary society, we are struck immediately by its obsession with sex, with sexual desire and its results. Marriage, divorce and sexual aberration are always news. The politician, the police, the social planner, the psychogist, the moralist, are concerned with population figures, juvenile delinquency, family planning, unmarried mothers, and sexual neurosis, resulting sometimes in complete inhibition, sometimes in complete promiscuity. They are all concerned with the family, and with what is happening at the root of the family, with the relationship between husband and wife. If we look at Christianity we find at its centre a doctrine of love, a sacramental doctrine which has its common realization in marriage; we find the sacrament of the family with its root in the relationship between husband and wife.

The most publicized aspect of the relationship between husband and wife today is the control of the number of children born to them. Various methods are used to prevent conception ensuing from intercourse. The most frequently heard aspect of the relationship from the Catholic point of view concerns the same subject.

From early childhood the Catholic is taught to realize something of our Lady's place in God's designs, and in course of time comes to learn that he who ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate’ was ‘born of the Virgin Mary'. So much for traditional Catholic teaching.

This Word of life which was from the beginning, which we have heard and seen with our own eyes, have gazed upon and our very hands have handled—this it is which we proclaim unto you… .’ (1 John, 1, 1.) With burning love and earnestness St John speaks of that knowledge and first-hand contact with the Lord Jesus which was his privilege. And now he can use these same words of the great Saint and Doctor St Thomas Aquinas. For he too loved our Lord, constantly and above all else, and by long familiarity with the things of God and long gazing upon the truths of God was enabled supremely to proclaim to thousands of others the saving truths of God.

But let us start, as St Thomas would surely start, with the Word of God; and meditate not on St Thomas and the Word of God, but on ‘The Word of God and St Thomas'.

I would not venture to read a paper on this subject to a gathering of natural scientists did I not hold that the process by which the natural scientist comes to understand the natural world is often analogous to the process of understanding carried out by other scientists, such as historians, for instance. Holding this opinion, I believe that other scientists may have helpful observations to offer to natural scientists on methodology and the basic principle understanding phenomena.

The three observations I wish to put forward are as follows. That in all our knowing-processes (the natural sciences included) we employ images or symbols, through which our mind's eye can see the objects our mind is searching for. Secondly, that the mind's capacity for throwing up symbols is especially vital in tne discovery of new truths—or even new techniques.

Lining, as many Catholics today are forced to do, in what might almost be called a pagan atmosphere, it is not perhaps surprising to find that some awkward paradoxes have grown to become quietly accepted. One such detail of Catholic life, which for many people goes unnoticed, is the fact that the sacrifice of the Mass has come to mean little or nothing in relation to our everyday lives. There is a terrifying separation between ourselves, our actions, and the source of all aid and strength, the Mass. For a large number of Catholics, Sunday is the only day of the week when they can hear Mass. For six other days they must live and work in machine-shops and offices where often Christian Ideals are openly considered weak, insufficient and out-dated.

Dear Fellow Convert, I am writing this letter at the request of the Prior of Park minster. He seems to think that because I ‘went over to Rome’ more than forty years ago and decided that I had a Carthusian vocation even before I ceased to be in communion with Canterbury, I might be able to explain to you, better then he can do, why all converts, especially recent ones, should recognize that the Carthusian life is in the literal sense an extraordinary and abnormal one; and whilst it is most admirable to fall in love with the golden heights, no one dare take this thing to himself unless God calls him. This is just common-sense. God does not Call the world as a whole by abnormal ways. Few men have the vocation to climb Mount Everest. Perhaps it has never struck you that at the present time there are less than six hundred Carthusian monks in the whole world, of which the Catholic population is reckoned to be about 423,000,000? These figures are enough to Prove that a Carthusian vocation is only granted to a tiny elite.

One of the actions which signifies the presence of a Catholic Christian is making the sign of the cross. The result would startle us if we counted up the number of times we make it during one day or during one celebration of Holy Mass. This sign becomes an automatic part of our lives, to sign the sign of the cross can be almost a reflex action; and surely non-Catholics may be forgiven if they suppose it to be just another bit of external ritual, enforced habit or even superstition. Perhaps at any one moment it may in the concrete be only one of these things, but this sign has an almost infinite richness in itself ot which it may be worth while to attempt a brief exploration.

I Recently attended the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, at which a number of distinguished scientists emerged from the mysterious shadows of their laboratories and tried to give the general public an idea of what they had been far doing-with varying degrees of success, since science has travelled far from the time when it was readily comprehensible to all educated people. One of the things that struck me was the number of times that the speakers went out of their way to emphasize that there was no longer any conflict—indeed, any possibility of conflict—between science and religion. It was natural enough, at an Oxford meeting, to recall the celebrated dispute which took place there in 1860 between Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce over the question of evolution. Tempers on that occasion ran very high. Nowadays, as was pointed out, such a scene is unthinkable.

In a series of Rules published by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars in 1901, concerning the approval of new institutes with simple vows, it is stated that the constitutions of these institutes are to express that they do not bind under pain of sin. Similarly, an Instruction of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith concerning the foundation of religious Congregations in missionary territories insists that: ‘Since these Constitutions are to be observed not out of fear but out of love, they do not of themselves bind under pain of sin …’ And the ‘Statutes to be observed by External Sisters of Monasteries of Nuns’ (1931) affirm that nothing in these statutes, apart from what has been drawn from the Code of Canon Law or other laws of the Church, binds under pain of sin, though the Sisters are obliged to accept the penance imposed for infractions of their constitutions.

The Church of God, quickened by the Spirit given at Pentecost, is alive even in her past. Her saints do not depend upon any human memorial to keep their name living, for they rejoice already in an undying communion with all the faithful in whom God's grace is operative and, like a cloud of compassionate witnesses, they support by their prayers those who still struggle to live as they lived and die as they died. It is, then, to rescue ourselves from our forgetfulness that it is good to recall a great English missionary who, on 5th June, 754, twelve centuries ago this summer, was killed by a band of the people he had already given his life to convert.

Wynfrith—it was only later that he took the Latin name, Boniface—was born in the West-Saxon country beyond Selwood a little before 675.

We live in a time of speed, and there is a truly frightening flight from thought, reflection, depth and all things that lie below the surface. For this reason, among others, this time of speed has become a time of action, and a time of action becomes in matters spiritual a time in which particular stress is laid upon the apostolate.

The danger is that speed is valued more than rest, speech more than silence, action more than contemplation, and time more than eternity. For the layman especially the word ‘apostolate’ can lose all meaning unless it is the natural outcome of a full inner life. It is this inner life which still remains such a bewildering and unwieldy issue for him that the flight into social action may easily become flight from one's own problems. Perhaps the main difficulty lies in a lack of knowledge where there is plenty of good will. The knowledge we have of Christ remains like the negative of a photograph, lightless. It is not often realized that knowledge is a function of life.