Truly to seek God implies that we consider him above all as the first principle of both nature and grace, then as the conserver of all being, and thirdly as the sovereign master who governs every creature and arranges everything by his providence. Hence we should consider all events, even the smallest, as manifestations of God’s will and pleasure.

Seeking God means willing nothing and desiring nothing except what he wills and arranges by his providence. We should consider as it were two acts in God in our regard: one by which he wills to give us certain graces to lead us to a certain degree of glory if we are faithful to him, and the other by which he does not will to give us more grace or raise us to a higher degree of glory than this. Few people have enough courage and fidelity to fulfil God’s purpose, and reach by their co-operation that degree of grace and glory which God desires.

These are the words of the Apostle St Paul, penned nearly nineteen hundred years ago; words which would fall admirably from the lips of a St Ignatius; were it not that the Saint, in his lovable humility, would be the last to think that such words could apply to himself.

Yet they do speak of him. For the words of the Apostle are the words of Scripture; and the words of Scripture are the words of God; and the words of God have a timeless character, and so a value at all times. Thus it is that without undue violence we can read these words of St Ignatius who went to God on July 31st four hundred years ago. It is this going to God, and then more especially the wonder of a lasting and living and growing work for God that we commemorate in this its four hundredth year.

And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended all these words, he Said to his disciples: You know that after two days shall be the pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified. This was a good opportunity for him to speak of die Passion. He Had been reminding them of the Kingdom and its reward, and of everlasting punishment; and he seemed to be saying: Why be afraid of sufferings which pass away so quickly when the good things of heaven await you? Notice, too, how he led up gradually to what he knew would grieve the disciples, and softened its impact upon them. Instead of saying: You know that after two days I am to be betrayed, he said: You know that after two days is the pasch; and then added that he would be betrayed and crucified.

Louis Lallemant, born in 1587, was educated by the Jesuits, and entered the Society of Jesus at the age of eighteen. After his tertianship he taught philosophy for three years, mathematics for four, and theology [in two periods) for five. From 1622 till 1625 he was novice-master and from 1628 till 1630 master of the tertianship. From 1631 till 1633 he was prefect of higher studies at Bourges and in 1634 rector of the same college. He had long suffered from ill-health, and he died there in 1635, aged only forty-seven, greatly esteemed for his holiness and his excellent spiritual influence.

He was described by a contemporary as being ‘of tall stature and majestic bearing; he had a wide, benign forehead and chestnut coloured hair, but was beginning to grow bald.

Divorce In Britain, a trickle in the second half of the nineteenth century, has become a flood which has already done irreparable harm to the national life and threatens to do still more in the future. The Anglican attitude to this evil is often criticized as ambiguous and inconsistent, but it is only fair to recognize that the corporate influence of the Church of England has been, and still is a real and important check to the further spread of this erosive tide of divorce. While most non-Catholic bodies in England have long since ceased to offer any effective resistance to the practice, the Church of England continues, in the face of ever growing criticism, to maintain her ban on the rege marriage in her churches of divorced persons who have a former partner still living. This ruling has been lately reaffirmed by an Act of Convocation.

Happy the man who hopes in him.’ No need to explain that, is there? Whoever does not hope in the Lord is miserable. And who doesn't? Why, whoever hopes in himself. Sometimes it's even worse, my dear brothers; listen, sometimes men don't even want to hope in themselves, but in other men. ‘While Jack Robinson's safe, you can't touch me'— and Jack Robinson may even be dead already. Here in this town the man says ‘As long as So-and-so is safe and sound', and So-and-so is already dead somewhere else. And how ready people are to say this sort of thing, instead of saying ‘I trust in God, he won't let you harm me'; instead of saying ‘I trust in my God, even if he does let you touch something, everything even that belongs to me, he won't let you touch my soul'.

In Holland there came a turn in the tide of the relationships between the Churches as early as the end of the first world war, though this war itself, unlike the later one, had but little influence on the religious climate in Holland. In the winter of 1919 the Dominicans of Zwolle started giving ‘conferences for non-Cathohcs’ in which they consciously abandoned the polemic tone for a quiet and objective explanation of the Catholic faith. On the Catholic side this was the first swallow which did not indeed make a summer, but at least announced it. Looking at it now it is easier to understand that the spiritual climate still had to change considerably before the age-old process of ossification in polemics and apologetics could be reversed.

In Holland, if anywhere in the world, one has to reckon witn non-theological factors in the relations of churches and confession.