A body is a terrestrial thing. It exists in time. It has a shape and a locus. The Christos is the Lord's anointed. He is a being divinely ordained to realize the divine purpose, whatever that may be. The body of the Christ is, therefore (whatever else it be) a temporal and terrestrial entity with a shape and locus ordained to realise the divine purpose.

It has been clear for a long time, indeed I think it was always obvious that a book, though it be the Bible, was never adequate means to realize the divine purpose. The Torah would not be the Torah without a community to believe and practise it. If the Christos has a body, this body must be not merely a system of utterances, but at least a community of people and things, a community that embodies and is chosen or ordained to embody the divine purpose fulfilled by the Christos. The body of Christ is the economy, the ecclesia of Christ.

The Council of Trent condemned heresies, as Councils have done since the beginning until Vatican II. It arrested such corruption as had been denounced by the Christian people. It laid down businesslike rules for the re-organization of a rather lax ecclesiastical society, it set up seminaries and effective visitations, and it provided the material for a full-bodied Canon Law which for four hundred years prevented any further epidemic demic of scandals, thereby restoring the good name of the church in the eyes of secular society. But as a social document it failed, and failed egregiously. The period which followed on the Council of Trent is known historically as the Counter-Reformation.

Two things prompted me to think a little more closely about the relation between fear and Christian belief; one was reading a book by Pfister on Christianity and Fear and the other was a growing concern with the extent to which fear seems to rule the lives of many Christians and provides an apparent contradiction of the love and freedom which are formally acknowledged as the keystones of Christianity. I have taken this opportunity to offer you the result of some reflection on the subject in the hope that in discussion we may gain some further insight into the meaning of the psalmist's words:

There is a great movement of rapprochement taking place in the world today, not only between Christian and Christian, but also between Christian and Jew. More has been written on ecumenical work among Christians than on the Christian-Jewish dialogue, which is yet in its infancy and is perhaps regarded with the same half-conscious suspicion and diffidence that the Christian unity movement at first aroused; but the most recent news from Vatican II shows that the relation of the Church to the Synagogue is at last receiving serious attention.

In the last article I suggested that the sacraments of penance and the anointing of the sick could be seen as parallel paths of return to the eucharist. Each of them belongs to the situation in which a man is prevented from taking part in the eucharist; penance has to do with the obstacles created by sin, anointing with the obstacle of sickness. This is not the most widespread view of the anointing of the sick but there can be very little doubt that it was the ancient view of the Church. For most Catholics ‘extreme unction’ is associated with the deathbed, not with healing; the very name suggests the last moments of life. It is commonly regarded as a preparation for death, and its effect is believed to be primarily an invisible one though it is conceded that an improvement of health may also follow by way of a bonus.

‘“If Christ rose from the dead, His religion and His doctrine are divine; but Christ rose again from the dead, therefore His religion and His doctrine are divine.” The first of these propositions is true; because, if Christ rose from the dead, it must have been by His own power, or by the power of God; if by His own power, by that very fact He would prove Himself God; if by the power of God, this would prove beyond doubt His divine mission … The second proposition, namely, but Christ rose again, only asserts one of the most certain historical facts … This miracle is the object of the attacks of all the incredulous, for this once admitted, no one could deny the divine mission and the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

English Catholics today are facing a serious balance-of-payments crisis, Publishers’ lists carry a large number of translations of theological books from the continent, and it is hard to think of more than a handful of English theological works, except, of course, Newman's, which have been exported. Honest to God has just appeared in the German book-shops, and of course one can always buy the novels of Muriel Spark, Graham Greene, and Bruce Marshall. It will take some time before our imports stimulate a spirit of renewal strong enough to produce a comparable movement that can make its own export contribution. But the recent interest in imported books is a welcome sign of the breakdown of English isolationism.

There is no mere mischievous intent in using for title part of the New Testament words about children, as amusingly translated; but a wish to deal helpfully, let's hope amusingly, and insist un-mischievously, with the problem of bringing children to their religion.

We must be aware of prickling, hindering difficulties at once. A priest without any of the responsibilities and therefore any idea of the responsibilities of day-to-day handling of children isn't on first view the one qualified to write about it. Any excursions of his among them in family or school are, he must remember, always special occasions, often prepared-for events, with an excitement and a response at least different from normal. He will, however, be aware, if only dimly, of what underlies the orderliness and respectful attention he meets; the discipline (or threat of force, to you) that may keep family or school from bedlam, but certainly can make nonsense of what might be said, in mere sentiment and simplicity, about religion, as anything else.

Justice and charity often seem to us to be opposites. Charity means generosity without calculation—‘Greater love hath no man than this’…; unending patience—‘Charity is patient and kind’; the forgiveness of injuries, and the renunciation of self-regarding rights. Justice, on the other hand, seems to make opposite claims. It requires us to regulate our generosity by reasonable calculation; it puts an end to patience when rights are threatened; it balances crime against punishment. Above all, it seems to be concerned with the assertion of rights, which is foreign to the spirit of charity.

The Middle Ages, says Emile Male, glorified what they most admired—the courage of a hero, joined to the abnegation of a monk. As a typical instance of this feeling, he describes a monument which existed in the church of Saint Faron at Meaux until the Revolution the tomb of Ogier and Benedict. These two, who were in fact monks of Saint Faron, were buried in the sanctuary at Meaux where they excited the curiosity of the faithful who came, mainly from Paris, venerate the relics of the patron saint. During the course of the eleven century the custodians of the place tended more and more, for the benefit of their visitors, to embellish the identity of these two, until it was eventually taken for granted that they must be the very Ogier and Benedict of the Song of Roland.

Theology, bible and liturgy are coming together at last. The modern renewal is a glorious new manifestation of the risen Christ in and through his Church. Nevertheless, there is still much to be done in bringing about a really vital Christ-centred orientation in the lives of all. We need to find Christ not only at mass and in the sacraments but in every condition and circumstance of our daily living. We must learn to give every aspect of our lives a sacramental character, an act of worship in Christ to God. What is important is not so much that we say our prayers, but that we become ourselves a living prayer. ‘Present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God—your spiritual service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the newness of your mind, that you may discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God’ (Rom. 12. 1-2).

It may be no accident that the examiners in the Honour School of Theology at Oxford commonly find that the worst performance in the examination is in the paper on the Four Gospels. If this is a symptom that candidates approach that paper with a certain diffidence, it is not too difficult to find an explanation. For among all the subjects which are usually included under the term ‘theology’, the study of the New Testament and in particular the study of the gospels is the one where the committed Christian is likely to find both his chief joys and his deepest sorrows. We hope to indicate the joys before we have finished, but we shall begin with the sorrows.

It is cruel to analyse a favourite spiritual book: ‘Philosophy will clip an angels wings’. Nevertheless last summer I tried the experiment on boot Chapman's spiritual letters. I had long been dissatisfied with Dom Roger Hudleston's presentation. He arranged the letters according correspondents, distinguished by quaint anonymous titles—‘To one living in the world’, ‘To a literary man’; he separated the letters to ‘lay folk from those to religious, and he put last of all the ‘Letters to a Jesuit’ which in fact, begin first. As a result the reader, having to jump backwards and forwards in time, is reminded of Eyeless in Gaza.

The present debate that is going on at the frontiers about the nature of theology has for most people yet to be distilled and passed on. There is a severe and crucial change taking place that has been given a noticeable liberation through the climate of dialogue created by the Second Vatican Council. Its implications are profound and excitement awaits all who witness the extension of theology as it is brought to bear on secular social problems in particular. Indeed the very life of theology itself depends upon this extension to the creative centres of contemporary culture, with a response to the fully historical situation. Furthermore, theology requires to be done by laymen, contributing to it in their capacity as expert witnesses. The experience of adult members of the Church working in specific situations needs to be seen as the raw material of creative theology, and Christian and non-Christian experience will be at once equally valid and applicable.

In these days when the part to be played by the laity in the revitalising of the life and apostolate of the Church is becoming increasingly emphasised, it may be of some value to examine lay spirituality in its present form, in order to analyse the extent to which the spiritual life of lay men and women is in fact being formed in the Church, to discover how far defects in this formation exist and how far they are remediable, and to make some suggestions for the leading of at least a section of this vast potential of men and women to a deeper personal contact with God, and consequently to a more fruitful service of their brethren.

Legalism is for many people one of the more difficult aspects of religion. We cannot help feeling, with some unease, how close it comes to the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees, the very antithesis of New Testament religion, the service of the heart, the freedom of the sons of God. As a subject of prayer, then, it will be even more difficult to assimilate. An ‘Ode to the Codex Juris Canonici’ would surely be limited in its appeal, and as a hymn would not be an obvious success. Yet it is precisely this sort of prayer which the psalter presents to us in psalm I, for example, or 118, or the second half of psalm 18.

The acrostic form used by many of these psalms does not lessen our difficulty. Psalm 118 is in fact a tour de force in this style: it is composed of twenty-two stanzas of eight lines each, in which each line begins with the same letter of the alphabet so that the twenty-two stanzas go through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Such a form, one might well think, does not make for great poetry; it is a rigid straight-jacket strangling any lyrical impulse or indeed any proper development of thought. And we may be tempted to think that this form is the reflection of the subject matter—uninspired, formalised, the apotheosis of the legal spirit.

Despite the ‘liturgical movement’, the reform now taking place in the Roman rite, and the considerable efforts made by recent popes to render the Church's worship accessible to all, it would still be possible for an unbiased observer to form something like the following views about Catholic worship in the West, and particularly in English-speaking countries, in the latter half of the twentieth century.

He would find in the first place a system of worship, with the text printed out in the liturgical books of the Roman rite, which had developed from the simple elements whose origins are to be found in the New Testament, the worship of the synagogue and the practice of the primitive Church; he would observe that by study of the history of these liturgical forms it is possible to trace the evolution of the various rites to their present complex form. Thus he would discover a highly developed system of worship which has grown up in the course of some two thousand years. On the other hand, he could hardly fail to observe from the celebration of this worship that very much of it appears to be totally incomprehensible to those using it. Not only the language (though that forms a considerable barrier) but other things as well could confirm him in his opinion.

Some of you may remember those morning inspections in the army which were so rigorous that the soldiers would on the night before have the bedclothes perfectly folded, their equipment perfectly laid out and then sleep on the floor. We are familiar with systems of dogmatic theology rather like this—perfectly arranged, logically coherent, and in the last resort separate from life and useless to men, indeed harmful to them in that men are deprived in their attempt to lead a Christian life of precisely that help which Christian doctrine ought to give: just as the purpose of inspection is efficiency, and efficiency is frustrated if inspection results in a soldier's missing a good night's sleep.