Calmly and seriously we take up anew the task which we could not bring to completion before. We speak again. And before all else, to our brethren everywhere we say this : however far apart we may be, however blank our ignorance of each other’s faces and even names, let us live together as believers in Christ, as the upholders on earth of his Spirit.

We have not, we must admit, escaped failure. We have lacked something, lacked that spiritual violence which alone storms the Kingdom of Heaven and without which to be gentle is to be a coward. We have lingered over things preliminary to the Faith or consequent upon it, forgetting our first task, to keep alive Faith in the Crucified. And that is how the Salt of the Earth turns savourless.

Here and now, then, we proclaim the need for contemplation, and in particular for contemplation of the Redemption actually at work in the world. What is contemplation but the noblest Christian activity, the supreme labour of love? How can Charity be alive in the world if it be not alive in our minds’ effort to explore the mysteries of our Faith? If we submit ourselves—and rightly—to all the lowly tasks that are part of authentic Christian living, this must not cause any misunderstanding of the nature of our obedience. It is not the blind obedience of a slave, like a pawn in some great game beyond his comprehension. We are friends, not slaves. Light has been given us and light is required of us.

Léon Bloy, who fought in 1870, suffered great poverty all his life, and died in 1916. He knew, as a matter of personal experience here on earth, that the absence of God is Hell.

Le Pélerin du Saint Sépulchre, as he called himself, he lived at the loot of the Cross, with infinite longing; seeing in History the great span of God’s holy Will (’ I am going to write a History of the Will of God ‘) stretching from the Fall to the Incarnation and from the Incarnation to the still unrealised reign of the Spirit; and underneath, the horror of godless man, ‘la hideur plus qu’effroyable d’un monde qui a cessé de ressembler à son Créateur ‘(La Femme Pauvre, p. 214). His meditation was all in depth, taking this form:

During 1942 a treatise, written, printed and edited in a French prisoners of war camp in Germany was then circulated in France through the agency of repatriated compatriots. It was the first of a series to be known as Les Cahiers des Captifs composed by Frenchmen whose enforced captivity had led them to alter or modify their pre-war views regarding government. One of these volumes is entitled Les Fondements de la Communauté Française—an attempt to outline the composition, function and powers of a State based on what may be called ‘communitarian’ principles. The treatise is divided into two sections, the first part dealing with basic principles and the second part with their organic applications.

In this article I make no attempt to transcribe the detailed working out of the plans proposed, but only to give the main reflections of this prisoner of war who believes firmly in the resurgence of his country provided she can achieve that national solidarity and cohesion she came so near losing.

To-day France is ripe for a new venture, and yet what she needs is to restate the old ideal which at bottom has always been treasured by the French people in all epochs of their history, at first instinctively, and then consciously—the ‘Communitarian ideal.’ In the 19th century France made the mistake of trying to restore a merely traditional past followed by the other mistake of transposing on to her soil institutions which were alien to her history, her national temperament and her genius.

It is only with great diffidence that the following considerations on a difficult subject are put forward in the hope of being of possible assistance to others. By unbelief is meant the initial reluctance to accept the doctrines of Christianity as well as the disinclination to retain them that often comes upon those who devote themselves to an intellectual life. This unbelief occurs especially during the formative period, usually, but not necessarily, the years spent by young people at a university, or the time immediately following. The purpose of this essay is to try to isolate the various elements in modern life that tend to disturb settled faith in Christianity, and very briefly to indicate some way of trying to counteract them. Many of the causes are common to all periods of history, some are proper to our own age or have unusual strength now. This account does not pretend to be more than a limited and partial sketch.

Behind every problem of modern instability there lies, first, a fundamental insecurity in social life, affecting all of us in many and sometimes unsuspected ways. This insecurity is manifested in the multiplicity and diversity of moral and political, personal and emotional standards all round ; these react in their turn to make more acute the basic insecurity in the soul—it may sometimes amount to a positive fear of life.

During the summer of 1944 a ‘Catholic People’s Week’ was advertised to be held during August at Walsingham. The Government ban on certain coastal areas forced the organisers to cancel their arrangements. As considerable interest in the project was aroused it will not be out of place to explain here the ultimate aims the organisers had in mind and the plans they have made for future action.

Educational reform is much to the fore at the moment. But the schemes to be put into operation are mainly concerned with the education of children. Many thinkers are convinced there is an equally if not more urgent need to provide for the education of adults. The acknowledged leader in this field is Sir Richard Livingstone, whose The Future in Education states unanswerably the case for adult education.

The human mind and will, the human senses and emotions, are never at rest. They are always open to the million influences of experience. Whether we realise, it or not, our own individual minds and wills are constantly fed and attracted by the realities of our daily round. Education should fit us to dominate these influences, to reject the unsound and absorb the wholesome. It should give us a high standard of discernment and firmness of character. Were we to drift and allow mind and will to submit passively to the flux of modern life with its press, radio, cinemas and factories, we should hardly succeed in retaining anything worthy of the name of personal autonomy. We do react, but do we react according to truth? Are our choices arbitrary, instinctive, thoughtless?