In a recent work M. Denis Saurat claims that reality is rendered comprehensible only by the “complete life of Christ”. Christ, Logos and Man, is the centre from which all life flows, unfolding “into the past and into the future". No doubt M. Saurat’s thesis is expressed in pantheistic thought forms, but this does not detract from the value of the imaginatively expressed intuition by which he has discovered that it is Christ alone who gives meaning and reality to the time process, and that it is the Incarnation that makes history intelligible.

Whatever reservations a Catholic is called upon to make regarding the details of M. Saurat’s vision, we are able to recognise that he is attempting to bring home to us a darkly seen variant of St Irenaeus’s doctrine of the recapitulation of all things in Christ. For by recapitulation St Irenaeus meant a recommencement in the opposite direction by which God, reversing as it were the process whereby sin infected the earth, gathers together and reunites all creation, including matter, but specially man, in a new economy of salvation. He gathers up his entire work from the beginning to purify and sanctify it in his Incarnate Son, who in turn becomes for us a second Adam.” (E. Mersch, S.J.: The Whole Christ: p. 230).

Creation points to the Incarnation, and this Christocentric preoccupation of St Irenaeus has important repercussions on his doctrine of man. M. Saurat, arguing from the same premise, has also described man in terms of Christ.

It needs a long view to assess the uses of adversity. At the time, while the intolerable thing is happening, hope itself seems hopeless. But at the heart of the disaster some new life starts springing: a new life, that is yet the recovery of something old and forgotten. For the Christian, that is only to say that no circumstance is without its providential value. Tout ce qui arrive est adorable.

In France in 1941 there seemed little room for hope. The ignominy of defeat reached deeper far than the level of a military surrender and it is easy enough to understand the mood of tortured immolation—“All that is left to France is to suffer”—which came over many Frenchmen at that time. But it is not given, to the members of Christ to despair, and the failure of human hopes, reveals all the more surely the new life we are called to share: “you will be distressed, but your distress shall be turned into joy” (John xvii: 20).

It was precisely at this time, 1941, that there came into being a movement, later to be known as the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique, which had for its aim nothing less than the recovery of the parish church as the Christian home, the place where the children of God meet and worship and whose influence extends to all they do. It might seem that there was no need to found a society to affirm what is an integral part of the Church’s function as the Mystical Body of Christ. But the Dominican founders of the C.P.L. had precise objectives in view. The German occupation brought grave difficulties for Catholic life in France.

With pleasure we welcome once more the arrival of the Vie Spirituelle in this country. It was not found wanting in the time of trial for it continued to appear throughout the occupation and has maintained its high standard. We wish it prosperity in the future and judging from the vitality of the first two numbers for 1946, it will play an important part in the work of spiritual reconstruction. Everyone knows the chaos of the present world, but few have any definite ideas as to what is to be done to remedy this state of affairs. The Vie Spirituelle tackles the problems in a most concrete and realistic way. The January number has a searching article on the nature and purpose of religious life, for the religious has to provide a concrete pattern of holiness to the world. Another article deals with the aims and methods of thè formation of seminary students. Both make fundamental suggestions and criticisms. There is also in this same number a most moving account of the charity shown by German catholics to Frenchmen conscripted for labour in Germany. As chaplains were not allowed to accompany these workers, priests went in disguise among them. The writer of the article, Fr J. Doyen, O.P., gives numerous instances of the help he was given by Germans, frequently with considerable danger to their own safety. One incident, particularly worthy of mention, records how he was able to say Mass every evening in a parish church without fear of being betrayed, although the whole parish knew about it.