The whole of the Catholic world has this year bee directed by the Holy Father to centre its devote on the Mother of God. The occasion is the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception, and the effect is one more year in which the constantly developing doctrine of the place of Mary in the work of the redemption and therefore in the daily life of man, is given impetus and hurried on apace. It might seem that we had progressed too far, that there was little more to be said or thought on this matter. But in fact the development, like true growth any kind, is drawing its vigour from the centre and the is in these days an increasing sense of origins and source which shows that the mind of the Church is not, like the mind of many men, moving on from one thing to another without retaining any unity or synthesis. The mind of the Church is the mind of the Word of God and therein all one from the central reality to the outermost detail of idea or phrase.

The difficulty becomes more acute in certain minds, and the pain more excruciating when it seems that despite all conceivable efforts at adaptation, fof reasons which render all initiative helpless, the action of the Church is far from being efficacious. Far from continually advancing, she seems to be slipping backwards. This is true even in lands where she appears to be reigning, even in places where her influence is acknowledged and supported, she does not make the gospel reign around her and the social order is not transformed by its principles. But should not a tree be judged by its fruits? Is not one, henceforth, justified in thinking that the Church will never be able to realise, more than in symbol, what others boast of bringing to actuality? Consequently, should not one transfer to these others the faith which he had once vowed to her?

In his latest encyclical, ‘Fulgens corona gloria', the Pope has proclaimed our Lady's Year. The occasion of this proclamation is the centenary celebration in December of the infallible definition of the Immaculate Conception, of the Virgin Mother of God. This is but an instance of the progressive development of Marian tradition from the earliest times is seen to be implicit and almost instinctive in the Faith of the Church. Pope Pius XII has allied himself closely with that tradition by becoming its spokesman. This he has done in defining the dogma of the bodily Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven, and dedicating the present commemorative year to her honour.

Between Mary and the mysteries of faith there is an essential connection. This is seen so clearly in the Holy Rosary, wherein the joys, sorrows and glories of a holy partnership between the Son and his Mother are woven into a garland of prayer.

There is always a fascination about trying to discern patterns in the course of the world's history, and this perhaps as much as anything else explains the Phenomenally popular, as distinct from professional, interest in Professor Toynbee's Studies in History. A more particular source of fascination is picking out the turning points of history. Toynbee, for instance, suggests that the decline of the West began in what had hitherto been considered the high Middle Ages, to be precise in the years immediately. Mediately preceding the pontificate of Hildebrand. To be more precise he tracks it down to a small action on the part Hildebrand before he became pope, when he hired thugs to counter-attack the thugs who were stealing the offerings of Peter's pence from the altar of St Peter's.

On the 16th March, 1902, Emilia Emaldi was delivered of her second child and, to her great joy, a son. Her friends had previously told her to prepare the long robe as he would be a priest. The thought gave her much pleasure as it was her dearest wish to give a son to the priesthood.

At this time, the family lived in S. Lorenzo near Lugo in the beautiful province of Ravenna in north-east Italy. Three years later they moved to the ancient seaport of Ravenna, but with the entry of Italy into the war in 1915 the heavy bombing forced them to return to Lugo. They suffered great hardship, and the father, Francesco Emaldi, was forced to work at anything which came his way in order to make a living.

The boy, who had been christened Alfeo, was nervous and naughty. He adored his father, whom he always obeyed promptly, but although he loved his mother dearly he behaved badly towards her.

During the last ten years or so there has been a greatly increased awakening, among Christians all over the world, to the importance of the spiritual sense of Scripture, to the value of the symbolic approach to Scripture, and to a consciousness of the influence of biblical symbolism upon the spiritual life of the Christian. The fact that the deliberations of this meeting are devoted to a study of the relationship of Scripture to the spiritual life is one more witness to this renewed interest. It is all the more important that we should have in our minds clear ideas about the nature of the spiritual sense, especially in view of the neglect of such studies during the nineteenth century and until recent times, and also because of the accusation of fancifulness which is easily levelled against its exponents in the present, as it was in the earlier ages of the Church. Furthermore, great prudence is needed in a spiritual exposition, as the recent papal encyclicals have warned us, so that any irresponsible fancies may be avoided.

We must remember that by the term ‘Jesus Prayer’ the Byzantine East refers, loosely enough, to any invocation centring in the Saviour's name itself. This invocation has taken various forms depending on whether it was used by itself, or included in more or less developed formulas. Moreover, it is for the individual to decide on his special way of invoking the name. In the East it has tended to take definite shape in the phrase 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner', but this formula has not been, and is not, the only one. That is an authentic ‘Jesus Prayer’ in the Byzantine sense, which is a repeated invocation whose core and strength is the name of Jesus. One might say, for example, 'Jesus Christ', or ‘Lord Jesus'. The oldest formula, the simplest, and in our view the easiest, is the word ‘Jesus’ used by itself. It is in this sense that we shall speak here of the 'Jesus Prayer'.

It is a common theme in Marian theology that our Lady's motherhood of men means that in some way we are born of her when we are born into the life of grace. What that means exactly no one knows; there is divergence of opinions about the closeness of Mary's work in our souls to the work of the Holy Ghost. Evidently our Lady does not save us; to what extent God has chosen to associate her with himself in this divine work is not yet known, and perhaps never will be till we see it all in retrospect, in heaven.

Our Lady is our spiritual mother. Here we are on safe ground. If we ponder on that fact, work out its implications, act on it, we shall be sure of ‘thinking with the Church sentire cum Ecclesia. Our earthly mothers give us life, earthly life, though they do not create our souls. Mary gives us spiritual life—she is called Mediatrix of all graces but she does not give us grace as from herself, for it is God's own gift.

Throughout the Church at the present time there is a growing movement of return to a closer love and more popular understanding and sharing in the prayer of the Liturgy. To a system which sees an earthly paradise in terms of the community, the Christian faith contrasts the fundamental truth of divine revelation that the relationship between man and God is one between a community of persons. But within that shared life of Christians there often exists a longing for greater simplicity and directness in the approach of the individual to God. For a baptised Christian does not primarily join an earthly society or adopt an ideology, he enters into a relationship with God, with three divine persons. God gives himself, adopts the Christian, who must then discover how to receive his adoption, how to get out of his own way, how to ‘die in order to live'.

In the Rule of St Benedict the monastic day is divided into three unequal periods. The longest is that which is given to manual work, which might amount to as much as seven hours. The others, which were roughly equal and amounted to about half that time, were given to prayer, or the ‘work of God', and to lectio divina or sacred reading. Each of these elements in the monastic life, as we hope to show, were intimately related to one another, but it is with the lectio divina that we are primarily concerned today. There is no doubt of the nature of this reading in the time of St Benedict and in the centuries which followed. It was confined at first to the study of the Bible and the Fathers, especially the Latin Fathers, and above all St Jerome and St Augustine. To these were added later, perhaps through the influence of Cassiodorus, some of the classical writers, but the typical Benedictine study has always remained the Bible and the Fathers.

In the Our Father we have not merely a plan for addressing God, a formula of prayer, but a command: ‘Thus shalt thou pray'. Prayer is the expression of our attitude towards God. Our Lord says, ‘This is the way you've got to ask God for things—this is the way you've got to think of God and address him; the way I wish you to approach him.'

Take the Lord's Prayer in that sense. ‘What is God to you?’ says our Lord; and he begins ‘Father'.

St Thomas says that we are entitled to take as intended for us every meaning of our Lord's words and actions which they will legitimately bear. Therefore we must take God as an ideal Father. ‘I am your Father, I want you to think of me as your Father; and not merely to think of me but to know that I am your Father.’ Look at a little child and his father; he receives all he has and is from his parents, but quite soon goes on independently of them.

Of the three monotheistic religions of the Semites, Islam was the last to make its appearance upon the stage of history in the third decade of the seventh century. Unlike its two predecessors, Judaism and Christianity, its appearance was attended by a series of epochmaking events which mark the eclipse of the two great empires of the time, Byzantium and Persia. And, whereas the beggign nings and developpm ent of the two latter religions are surrounded by comparative obscurity, historians know almost all the significant stages in the rise and development of Islam, which forces itself, like a cataclysm, upon the attention of the civilized world by dint of military prowess.

Few things would have surprised, or indeed amused, Father Paul Nevill more than that someone should think it suitable to write about him in the pages of The Life of the Spirit. And that is a clue to the sort of man he was. During his thirty years as Headmaster at Ampleforth, Father Paul met many thousands of persons, very few of whom will not have been struck by the impact of his personality. He has been called the greatest of modern headmasters. Certainly it is true that his prestige not only among the senior officials of the Ministry of Education but also among his fellow members of the Headmasters’ Conference was very great. Yet his position as Headmaster of Ampleforth had little to do with the influence he attained. With his fine presence-great height, magnificent head, and natural grace—he was made for fame; but natural gifts of themselves achieve little the union in him of grace and nature that won him the unique place that was his in the educational world of this country.

The idea is current that virtue and intelligence have little to do with each other; the idea implied in the line of the song, ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever'. We may readily agree that virtue has little do with mere smartness, or with that slick mental dexterity so much admired in the lower reaches of the commercial world; but it is certain doctrine that mature, adult virtue cannot dispense with intelligence since the will is the executive or directive faculty of the intellect.

The planning directive virtue of the moral life is prudence, and it is an intellectual virtue in the sense that its seat Is the intellect, and its function is to teach us how to act, applying general principles to conduct here and now in given concrete circumstances. It enables us above all else to keep the end or reason of action in view.

Our chief concern, brethren (sisters), is the love of God; and after this the love of our neighbour, for these are the two greatest commandments. To these ends we give the following directions for the regulation of monastic life.

The first aim of community life is the ideal of unity in community—all our thoughts and desires united and centred on God.