‘Soul’ has come to be almost exclusively a religious word in modern languages, like ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ and ‘prayer’. The soul is something which people beheve in or do not believe in, like God. It is thought of as an important but highly mysterious part of a human being, which it is the aim of the Christian religion to save. We talk about the salvation of souls, but not of bodies or minds or even of people, because ‘bodies’, ‘minds', and ‘people’ are profane every-day concepts shared by believers and unbelievers alike. No one would dream of saying they believed or did not beheve in the body, the mind, or people, because they are all more or less evident phenomena of which we all have experience. Soul is not an evident phenomenon, but a mysterious hypothesis which rehgious people believe in and others often do not.

Vows in Secular Institutes are not recognized by the Church as the public vows of religion, but they are more than the private vows of individuals. They are termed ‘semi-public’ or ‘social', indicating a contract not only with God, but with the specific Institute in which the member takes the vows. Thus the member is bound to the Institute, and the Institute becomes responsible for the member.

As a rule, the vows are taken for a period which varies according to the Institute, and after temporary vows the member usually takes final vows. Whereas religious may not have a period of temporary profession extending beyond six years, this period of trial in Secular Institutes can be extended by particular constitutions, or by the lawful superior, to ten years. This is because of the absence of the common life, and because of more prolonged and more direct contact with the outside world, the process of formation in Secular Institutes will ordinarily be slower than in the more sheltered religious congregations.

It has been said more than once that ‘Music hath charms'. But it can hardly be said that this charm is encountered as often as it ought to be at Mass or Benediction in our parish churches up and down the country. There is a considerable lack of charm in much of the music connected with the worship of God amongst us. On the other hand, we have to remind ourselves that God has no car for music. He is not disturbed by the secondrate music or the flat notes of the parish choir or the congregational hymns, though he would be disturbed, if we could talk of God in such a way, by any lack of harmony to be found in their hearts. The harmonies most acceptable to God are those of heart and mind running through the congregation of worshippers; and it is hkely that beneath the lack of good music there will lie some very beautiful harmonies indeed.

It's very simple, you just have to do what you're told, and because you're told to do it'. But the religious does sometimes meet situations in which he legitimately hesitates whether he ought to obey or not. And then what becomes of'doing what you're told because you're told to do it'? And if hesitation can sometimes occur, how is the religious to know when this crucial moment has arrived?

‘Of course, religious obedience is not like what you find in the army. Religious obedience has got to be voluntary and interior, not just a matter of external discipline.’ But there is a sense in which obedience can never extend beyond external behaviour (Sum. Theol. II-II, 104, 5), and if this kind of statement only means that religious obedience must come from the will it is difficult to see that army obedience or any other should do otherwise, at any rate if it is to be dignified by the name of obedience.

‘Sent into the world on my errand.’ The word apostle signifies one who is sent.

Who sends, to whom, and why? Christ is the sender. To whom does Christ send his apostles? To the whole world. The Kingdom of God has no visible frontiers, it is within the heart of each human being. ‘Go out all over the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation’ (Mark xvi, 15). What is Christ's errand? To deliver the message 'which concerns the Word who is Life'.

‘What he was from the first, what we have heard about him, what our own eyes have seen of him, what it was that met our gaze and the touch of our hands.’ (I John i, 1.) Why is the message delivered? ‘That you too may share in our fellowship … with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’

It is now something over fifty years since the appearance of that major landmark in liturgical history that was the Motu proprio of Pope St Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini, published on November 22, 1903. The original text was in Italian, though it was accompanied by a Latin text also. It is worth examining briefly the nature of a Motu proprio, by way of comparison with some subsequent legislation. A Motu proprio is a papal rescript, including these words ('of his own accord’), signifying that the Pope has decided personally on its provisions, neither depending upon the request or advice of others, nor setting out to deal with a particular case. (A special legal characteristic of a Motu proprio is that it does not depend for its validity upon the validity of the reasons alleged for its issue, as is the case with ordinary rescripts where the phrase is not used: the Motu proprio is valid whatever may happen to the reasons.) The most well-known Motu proprio is this one on Church Music, so that the term suggests to most people this particular document.

All pilgrims and visitors to Jerusalem include Gethsemane, the valley of the Cedron, and the Mount of Olives in their itinerary. This eastern side of Jerusalem is all ‘holy place', for as St John tells us, our Lord was often there (cf. John xviii, I-2). Very few however linger long enough to trace the course of that occasional torrent-bed or wadi, which starts as the Cedron and continues down towards the Dead Sea as the Wadi en-Nar. But let us suppose that we have done so and skirted the site of Old Testament Jerusalem, past the pool of Siloam (John be) on our right. If we continue down the course of the wadi by what at best would be called a bridle path, twisting and turning, strewn with boulders, we finally plunge down between high cliffs of sombre and sinister rock. We start south, but a sharp bend serves to make the general direction south-east.

The title of Bible, Liturgy and Family seems at first not only forbidding but fantastic. Scholars throughout the centuries have devoted their lives to the study of these subjects and will continue to do so till the end of time, so what of value can I say in a short talk?

After a little thought I was able to answer my own question. I think that no family should be without ideas on the subject of the Bible and the Liturgy and also that the future of Christian society is being strongly influenced, if not shaped by such ideas as they have. It may also be true that at present, too many people have too few ideas and too few people too many, in which case we shall all benefit by a pooling of resources.

I must admit at once that I am conscious of large gaps in what I have to say, and I hope that these gaps will be filled by those whose learning and experience and vocation have fitted them to do it.

Treatises of old testament theology never fail to remind us that ruach, the Hebrew word for ‘spirit', also means ‘wind’ or ‘breath'. Of these three meanings, that of wind appears to have been the most primitive. One can see how natural it is to think of the wind as an act of God. Invisible, immensely powerful and sometimes catastrophic in its effects, it is also of mysterious origin, transcendant and quite uncircurnscribed in its activity. This ‘wind symbolism', primitive though it is, is of permanent theological value. It is to be found in the late and developed theology of Ecclesiastes. ‘Going southwards, turning about northwards, about and about goes the wind’ (i, 6) ‘ … you know not what the way of the wind is’ (xi, 5). In the new testament it is taken up in the teaching of our Lord himself.

Religious sociology, as an academic study in its own right, is scarcely twenty years old, and as yet its true dimensions have hardly been realized. Indeed Professor Gabriel Le Bras, its virtual founder, can speak with pardonable rhetoric of its ‘limitless horizons', since it ‘embraces all times, all countries, all man's dreams of time and the infinite'. Of course there is a sense in which the material which the religious sociologist considers has always been there. The Church exists among men, in time and place, and even the old testament provides ample evidence of the close connection between men's worship of God and the social setting in which it is to be achieved.

The structure of the Church's organized life is a palimpsest of her history. To that extent it is a matter of chance, or perhaps one should say of the providence that ordained her growth in terms of particular cultures and societies.

Men and women in religious congregations are traditionally spoken of as occupying a state. By this we mean a permanent status to which they are tied for some fixed period, usually for life. It is by the three vows of religion that they are established in this state. And so the vows tend to be thought of absolutely as what make religious what they are. There is a danger in this way of thinking of them, as if they were something in their own right, for their own sakes. It can be forgotten that the vows are only a means to an end, and have always to do with what is vowed. One comes on queerly used distinctions between, for example, the vow and the virtue of obedience, as if the thing known as religious obedience under vow was something quite different from the virtue of obedience.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that this is an octave of prayer for unity. A time, therefore, not so much for talking and listening to each other about our divisions and how we might heal them, but rather for talking and listening to God— trying to see our divisions with his eyes, and asking for his unity.

This octave—or eight days—of prayer for unity all began about fifty years ago at a place called Graymoor in the State of New York. A small community of very Catholic-minded clergymen of the American Episcopalian Church lived there, trying to follow the rule and way of life of St Francis. They called themselves— they are still called—Friars of the Atonement. They were not, so far as I know, very distinguished theologians or what we should regard as abnormally saintly men; just sincere, hard-headed and hard-working American pastors living a community life.

The subject-matter covered by this title is so wide in extent that we are in danger from the outset of being lost in generalities. For this reason I propose to explore one corner only of its extensive field, by confining myself to the parochial apostolate. I think you will find that the more general principles will emerge.

Let us begin with a quotation:

Is that statement true or fanciful? You may have your own ideas about that. There are however one or two incontrovertible facts about this new situation.