Caryll Houslander The Widow's Poverty

The Widow’s Poverty Caryll Houselander (+ 1954) The poverty of Christ is not destitution, though actually Christ was destitute for part of his life, and in every age one or more of the saints have had a true vocation for absolute poverty. Such saints are Saint John the Baptist, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Joseph Benedict Labre. For such a vocation there is room in modern life. So falsified are all our standards that we are inclined to forget that there is any such thing as intrinsic value ... Saints who are chosen by God to be destitute, to have literally nothing, are the pure gold that shows us that holy poverty has an intrinsic value. There was an old man who called at his bank every week and asked to see his money in gold. "I like to see what I have got," he explained. We Christians have "got" Christ's absolute poverty. Although we are allowed to have reasonable comfort ourselves, the grace and power of Christ's real destitution belongs to us. His homelessness, his nakedness, his loneliness, the poverty of the dead man on the cross, all that belongs to us as Christians, and in times of crisis we can draw on it. At all times we can rely on it; without it the gentler poverty would have no value and we should be a spiritually bankrupt race. The grace of Christ's utter poverty is given to all the destitute and homeless people in the world, outcasts and refugees; without it, they would despair. Anyone of us at any time now may need to draw on this pure gold of Christ's poverty. From time to time, like the old man, we want to see what we have got. Those saints who baffle the faithless by leading lives which seem to them to be useless, even selfish, lives like Christ's public life, poorer than the wild foxes and the birds, show us that his poverty is still our wealth, is still triumphant. Even in human nature as it is today, Christ, naked and foolish on the cross, can be king. Poverty, not destitution, the simpler poverty which many people experience, makes us more sensitive, more selective, able to perceive the poetry in life. Sunday, November, DAY BY DAY - MAGNIFICAT Missalette

Raymond - Widow's Mite

32nd Sunday of Ordiary Time

Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009
Subject: Widows Mite

Homily of Fr. Raymond

THE WIDOW’S MITE

Jesus generally uses two types of Oral Teaching to get across his message: first there is the direct teaching - of the Beatitudes – for example, and then there is the more indirect, but more picturesque, method of the parables - short imaginative stories to illustrate a point.

There is however one, perhaps solitary, incident of Jesus teaching where he uses neither of these methods. This incident is the story which we call “The Widow’s Mite”. It’s very uniqueness underlines for us the importance of its teaching. Nowhere else in his public ministry do we hear Jesus holding up the example of any living person, not even of his mother, for the admiration and inspiration of his hearers. This, we must remember, is no parable, no little ‘made-up’ story to illustrate a point. No, this was a real life incident which happened before the very eyes of Jesus and his disciples. It was an incident which must have impressed Jesus so much that he spontaneously turned to his disciples and told them that the gift of this poor widow’s two coins, meant more to God than had all the great offerings which they saw the wealthy putting into the treasury.

If we try to analyse her gift logically it seems to make no sense. “It was all she had to live on”, Jesus tell us. Perhaps he didn’t mean that quite literally. It was the kind natural expression anyone would have made. Anyone, knowing her condition and seeing what she did, could easily have said “But that’s all she has to live on!”

However, whether it was literally true or not, the lesson remains the same. Her extravagantly generous faith and love were highly pleasing to God. It is foolish to look for logic here and argue that she should have had a greater sense of responsibility in the use of her little sum. She knew very well she would have to beg for bread on the morrow!

But the logic of the poor widow was one of faith and love which would argue like this: “What kind of security for my future are my two pennies? Precious little! My security lies only in God! It is into his loving hands that I confide them as I confide my future.

Ronald Knox Widow's Mite Mk 12:44

MASS – 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Widow’s Mite.

“She put in all that she had her whole livelihood”.

There is nothing ornamental about the “Widow’s Mite” Gospel in the Knox/Cox vignette of this pericope.

Ronald Cox's examination or commentary conveys his experience of the chronolgy and the geography, his familiarity of the Mount of Olives to the Temple. "He walked, with his apostles, towards the Golden Gate; . . ."

Ronald Knox may also be described as having put all that he had his whole livelihood into the Word. After translating the whole Bible he goes on to write about it. See this trilogy of his constant sharing his interest with readers:

A Harmony of the Gospels

The Gospel Story, Ronald Knox & Ronald Cox

A New Testament Commentary for English Readers.

A Harmony of the Gospels, R. Knox Translation

Public Life	Our Lord in Judea
§88. The Widow's Mite	§88. The Widow's Mite
MARK 12:41-44 41 As he was sitting opposite the treasury of the temple, Jesus watched the multitude throwing coins into the treasury, the many 42 rich with their many offerings; and there was one poor widow, who came and put in 43 two mites, which make a farthing. Thereupon he called his disciples to him, and said to them, Believe me, this poor widow has put in more than all those others who have put 44 offerings into the treasury. The others all gave out of what they had to spare; she, with so little to give, put in all that she had her whole livelihood.	LUKE 21:1-4 1 And he looked up, and saw the rich folk 2 putting their gifts into the treasury; he saw also one poor widow, who put in two mites. 3 Thereupon he said, Believe me, this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 The others all made an offering to God out of what they had to spare; she, with so little to give, put in her whole livelihood.

Chronological Harmony: Tuesday 1 April 30 A.D.

Gospel –trans. Ronald Knox	Ronald Cox.
Continuous Narrative	Explanations
The Widow's Mite As he was sitting opposite the treasury of the temple, Jesus watched the crowd throwing coins into the treasury, the many rich with their many offerings; and there was one poor widow, who came and put in two mites, which make a farthing. Thereupon he called his disciples to him, and said to them, 'Believe me, this poor widow has put in more than all those others who have put offerings into the treasury. The others all made an offering to God out of what they had to spare; she, with so little to give, put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.	The Temple Tuesday 4 April The crowd dispersed after our Lord's touching words of fare­well to Jerusalem (p. 324). He walked, with his apostles, towards the Golden Gate; there he turned and entered the Women's Court; from the Nicanor Gate he could see the altar of burnt offerings, and the sanctuary where God dwelt among his people (this scene recalls Jesus' first appearance in his Father's house, pp. 18-20). Although he was tired, he would not miss an opportunity of instructing his disciples: God wants men, not their money. The religious value of an act is in the intention; it is internal, not external. The only gift that pleases God is the heart.

THE GOSPEL STORY

Ronald Knox & Ronald Cox.

This is a new and exciting presentation of the New Testament: all the lucidity of the Knox translation combined with an up-to-date and scholarly commentary in one volume, This is a book that really explains those elements in the Gospels that are not clear to the twentieth-century reader -the back-ground of Jewish daily life, custom, traditional figures of speech and ritual in Roman-occupied Palestine. The left-hand pages contain the entire life-story of Jesus Christ told in the words of the Evangelists as rendered by Monsignor Knox. On the right-hand pages is Father Cox's commentary directly opposite the text it refers to. Further points for readability are quotation marks for direct speech, omission of chapter and verse numbers, 'thee' and 'thou' replaced by 'you' throughout and conversion of measures of time and distance into their modern equivalents, so that 'the ninth hour' is now 'three in the afternoon'. Father Cox, a New Zealander who studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and in the Holy Land itself, worked in close collaboration with Monsignor Knox-as is shown by the latter's witty epigram prefacing the book-and all changes were made with his permission and cooperation.

NOTE on book dust cover.

The picture on the dust-cover shows the Apostle John with his Gospel, and is a detail from a Roman sarcophagus, c. 33D-40 A.D., in the Lateran Museum, Rome. It is reproduced, by permission, from an illustration in the Atlas of the Early Christian World, Nelson, Edinburgh.

18s. Burns & Oates

1959

Ronald Knox, A NewTestament Commentary for English Readers.

Burns & Oates 1953

MARK 12.38-44. The Pharisees denounced; the widow’s almsgiving.

Mathew gives us a whole chapter (23) on the text of verses 38-40, and omits the story of the widow altogether. Curiously, in his long chapter on the Pharisees there is no reference, as in Mark and Luke, to their "swallowing up the property of widows". I t looks as if Mark depended, here, on a source different from Matthew's; possibly the connexion of the two passages is due to their subject, not to historical sequence. The traditional view that Mark wrote primarily for a Roman public seems reinforced by the fact that he gives here the Latin equivalent, "farthing," for the two "mites" which were Greek.

also by Ronald A. Knox ON ENGLISHING THE BIBLE.
Mgr. Knox has verified some of his difficulties in the tremendous task of making the Bible comprehensible to modern readers. . .

Goal & Objective of Monk

Purity of Heart, goal and objective of the monk.

FRIDAY 6^th Nov. MASS

Gospel: For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. Luke16: 1-8

MEDITATION OF THE DAY

(from Magnificat Missalette)

Acting Prudently

"All the arts and disciplines," Abba Moses said, "have a certain scopos or goal, and a telos, which is the end that is proper to them, on which the lover of any art sets his gaze and for which he calmly and gladly endures every labour and danger and expense.

For the farmer, avoiding neither the torrid rays of the sun one time nor the frost and ice another, tirelessly tills the soil and subdues the unyielding clumps of earth with his frequent ploughing, and all the while he keeps his scopos in mind: that, once it has been cleared of all the briers and every weed has been uprooted, by his hard work he may break the soil into something as fine as sand. In no other way does he believe that he will achieve his end, which is to have a rich harvest and an abundant crop, with which he may thenceforth both live his life in security and increase his substance. Labouring in dedicated fashion, he even willingly removes produce from his well-stocked barns and puts it in crumbling ditches, not thinking of present diminution when he reflects on the future harvest. Likewise, those who are accustomed to engage in commerce do not fear the uncertain behaviour of the sea, nor are they afraid of any risks, since they are spurred on by winged hope to the end of profit. Neither are those who are inflamed by worldly military ambition, seeking as they do the end of honours and power, conscious of calamities and the dangers of their long treks, nor are they crushed by present fatigue and wars, since they wish to attain the end of high rank that they have set for themselves ... "

'The end of our profession... is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven; but the goal or scopos is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for anyone to reach that end. Fixing our gaze on this goal, then, as on a definite mark, we shall take the most direct route."

Conferences of John Cassian

Cassian, John (360-435)

Conferences of John Cassian offer the modern Christian a glimpse into the lives of 2nd and 3rd century Christian monastics. It documents the thoughts of Christians who took Jesus’ instructions to take up our own cross, leave our family, and renounce our possessions literally. The Conferences of John Cassian is an early archetype of the monastic way of life where the theology of denying self is implemented in daily living. Cassian’s work was highly respected by his contemporaries, as well as those who went on to have enormous influence on the monastic movement. Benedict referenced Cassian’s work while writing The Rule of St. Benedict, which went on to be the rule of life for countless Benedictine monks.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Lacordaire (2)

Lacordaire on God’s Inner Life

The name of Lacordaire has always had some fascination.

It took many years actually coming at this point to have the compulsion to learn more.

To begin the Magnificat Missalette had a Meditation on Lacordaire.

This called for a search in the Library and find the only book to hand, Pere Lacordaire’s Conferences for Lent in Notre Dame de Paris.

Then a Dominican visitor mentioned the biographical essay, Lacordaire, by L. C. Sheppard – the riveting story of his life.

The latest publication is obviously very selective

Batts, Peter M. Henri-Dominique Lacordaire’s re-establishment of the Dominican Order in nineteenth-century France. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, £64).

To tackle 1870 English translation, I tried the second Conference, “The Inner Life of God”. Admittedly it proved to make daunting reading.

The illustration of the young people crowded to Notre Dame de Paris makes me puzzle. The writing is certainly academic. But have we any impression of the eloquence of the orator influencing thousand. (Never hear the likes in St. Bernard, it is said).

By some very good fortune, with Google search, a Catholic Writers Notebook, has only recently produced a commentary on the Conference, “The Inner Life of God”.

With acknowledgement to John O’Neil for his series in his Blog, catholicwritersnotebook.blogspot DOT com/2009/10/lacordaire-on-gods-inner-life-part-1.html, it may be convenient to attach the script.
It is most helpful, lucid and illuminating, in the rather challenging style of the epoc.

Catholic Writer's Notebook NOTES ABOUT CATHOLIC LIFE & SPIRITUALITY IN THE 21st CENTURY Saturday, October 17, 2009 Lacordaire on God’s Inner Life, Part 1 When discussing the Holy Trinity, the Fathers of the Church distinguished between theology and economy. “Theology” refers to the mystery of God’s inmost life within the Trinity and “economy” to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the “economy” the “theology” is revealed to us; conversely, the “theology” illuminates the whole “economy”. God’s works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §236). With this in mind, I thought it beneficial to review the theology of God’s inner life as a transition into a later series on how we can use this knowledge of God’s inner life to discover how, by imitating Christ, we might participate in the economy of God’s works of salvation in our own time. For the first series, I’ve chosen to paraphrase some thoughts of Père Jean Baptiste Henri Dominique Lacordaire, O.P., delivered in a conference at Notre Dame in Paris in mid-19th century. The series of conferences was published in London as a book entitled GOD in 1870. The following thoughts are gleaned from chapter two, “The Inner Life of God”, pages 27 to 58. Père Lacordaire begins by defining life as a certain state of being, which defines as that mysterious force, called activity, which is the principle of beings’ substance and organization. Since activity is a permanent and common characteristic of all that is, he concludes that being is activity, citing St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of God as pure act (Summa Theologica, Q. 3, a. 1). From this, Lacordaire concludes that “activity supposes action, and action is life, or, to put it another way, “life is to being what action is to activity” and “to live is to act”. A stone is; a plant grows; an animal lives – gradations of activity, whose presence constitutes a living being (Père Lacordaire, GOD, pp. 30-32). Lacordaire formulated this in his first general law of life: the action of a being is equal to its activity. Applying this law of life to the inner life of God, he draws the conclusion that, as the action of a being is equal to its activity, it follows that in God there is infinite action, which constitutes the very life of God (Ibid., p. 32). But what is action, he asks. Action is movement, he answers; but movement supposes an object, an end toward which it aspires. “I move, I run, I risk my life seeking something wanting to me and which I desire; for if nothing were wanting in me, my movement would have no cause, repose would be my natural state, immobility my happiness. Since I move, it is to act: to act is at the same time the motive and the end of movement, and consequently action is productive movement” (Ibid., p. 33). Since action is the consequence of activity, it follows that production is the final end of activity and being, both of which are one and the same. According to the first general law of life, the action of any being is equal to its activity. To live is to act; to act is to produce; to produce is to draw forth from self something equal to itself. “Every being tends to produce in the plenitude of its faculties, because it tends to life in the plenitude of its life, and it attains that natural term of its ambition only by drawing from itself something equal to itself” (Ibid., p. 34). All of this, of course, is leading up to his second general law of life and how it applies to the inner life of God, which will be the subject of Part 2 of this series. Posted by John O'Neill at 8:15 AM Sunday, October 18, 2009 Lacordaire on God’s Inner Life, Part 2 We continue Père Lacordaire’s conference on the inner life of God. Having laid down and explained the first general law of life, that the action of any being is equal to its activity and how it applies to the inner life of God, he moves on to the second general law of life. Citing Christ’s words, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required,” he demonstrates the law of production: for life to produce something equal to itself, it must produce life; for a living being to produce something equal to itself, it must produce a being like itself. Fecundity, then, is the extreme and complete end of production, the necessary end of activity. Thus, we arrive at the second general law of life: the activity of a being is begun again in its fecundity. Life is fecundity, and fecundity is equal to life. God, being infinite activity, is also infinite fecundity. For if God were infinitely active without being infinitely fruitful, one of two things would follow: (1) either his action would be unproductive, or (2) he would produce only outside of himself, in finite time and space. Neither of these would be the action of the infinite and purely spiritual being that is God. Therefore, the life of God is exercised totally within himself by an infinite and a sovereign fecundity (GOD, pp. 35-37). The application of this law to God’s inner life, Lacordaire pointed out, is borne out in the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas in which he explains that in God there is an internal procession in the case of an action that remains within the agent itself. St. Thomas gives as an example the case of the intellect, whose action, an act of understanding, remains within the one who understands. Therefore, in God procession is to be understood in the sense of an intellectual emanation – more specifically, the emanation of a meaningful word from a speaker, where the word remains within the speaker [hence, the procession of the Word of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity]. This is the sense in which the Catholic faith posits procession within God (Ibid., p. 39). From this, Lacordaire concluded that since action is a movement, a movement supposes the acting being and the desired being, and a relation between the acting being and the desired being, without which there would be no more action, no more activity because relation is the very essence of life. A relation consists in the bringing together of two distinct terms, the perfect conjunction of which is unity, the perfect distinction of which is plurality so that their perfect relation is unity in plurality (Ibid., p. 40). This brings us to Lacordaire’s third general law of life: the end of fecundity is to produce relations between beings, giving an object to and a reason for their activity (Ibid., p. 41). The mystery of life is a mystery of relations, i.e., unity in plurality, plurality in unity. God is one: his substance is indivisible because it is infinite. God cannot then be many by the division of his substance. Let the substance of God remain what it is and what it should be – the seat of unity; and let it produce in itself, without being divided, terms of relation, i.e., terms that are the seat of plurality in relation to unity. For those two things, one and many, are alike in order to form relations; and if the substance of God were divisible, there would be no unity, and likewise no relations. God is a unique substance, containing in his indivisible essence terms of relation really distinct in themselves. As we apply these expressions of the visible order to God, however, their proportions at once become changed because they pass from the finite to the infinite; so, it’s no wonder that Catholic doctrine teaches that terms of relation take, in God, the form of personality. Every being, by that alone that it is itself and not another, possesses what we call individuality. As long as it subsists, it belongs to itself; it may increase or decrease, lose or gain; it may communicate to others something of itself, but not itself. It is itself as long as it is; none other is or will ever be so, except itself. Suppose now that the individual being possesses consciousness and knowledge of its individuality, that it sees itself living and distinct from all that is not itself, it would be a person (Ibid.,pp. 45-47). In my next post in this series, we’ll explore with Lacordaire how many persons there are in God, how and in what order they are manifested in him. Posted by John O'Neill at 8:23 AM Labels: The Trinity in Christian Life Monday, October 19, 2009 Lacordaire on God’s Inner Life, Part 3 In this installment of Lacordaire’s conference on the inner life of God, he takes up the theology of processions or origins and relations in God. The mind lives, like God, of an immaterial life, and consequently knows that life in which the senses have no part, and which is that of God. The mind does two things only, it thinks and it loves. It thinks, it sees and combines objects of divested of matter, form, extent and horizon. I speak of the mind as it is of its own nature, as it lives when it wills to live at the height where God has placed it. Thought is not the mind itself; thought comes and goes; the mind always remains. My thought and my mind are two; yet I am one. My thought, although distinct from my mind, is not separated from it. My intellectual life is a life of relation; I find in it what I’ve seen in external nature: unity and plurality – unity resulting from the very substance of my mind, plurality resulting from its action. The mind, like the whole of nature, but in a much higher manner, is fecund, prolific. The mind, created in the likeness of God, remains inaccessible to all division. It engenders its thought without emitting any of its incorruptible substance; multiplies it without losing anything of the perfection of unity. The body keeps us too far from God; the mind has borne us even to the sanctuary of his essence and his life. (GOD, pp. 49-51) God is spirit; his first act is to think. In God, whose activity is infinite, the mind at once engenders a thought equal to itself, which fully represents it, and which needs no second expression, because the first has exhausted the abyss of things to know, the abyss of the infinite. That unique and absolute thought, the first-born and last of the mind of God, remains eternally in his presence as an exact representation of himself, as his image, the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance (see 2 Corinthians 4:4; Hebrews 1:3). It is his word, his utterance, his inner word, as our thought is also our utterance and our word; but differing from ours inasmuch as it is a perfect word which speaks all to God in a single expression, which speaks it always without repetition, and which St. John heard in heaven when he thus opened his sublime Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).(Ibid., pp. 51-52) In God, the thought is distinct without being separated from the divine mind which produces it. The Word is consubstantial with the Father, according to the expression of the Council of Nicaea in 325. In God, the thought is distinct from the mind by a perfect distinction because it is infinite; in God, the thought becomes a person. In God plurality is absolute as well as unity, and therefore, his life passes entirely within himself, in the ineffable colloquy between a divine person and a divine person, between a Father without generation and a Son eternally engendered. God thinks, and he sees himself in his thought as in another so akin to him as to be one with him in substance; he is Father since he has produced in his own likeness a term of relation really and personally distinct from him; he is one and two in all the force that the infinite gives to unity and duality; in contemplating his thought, in beholding his image, in hearing his word, he is able to utter in the ecstacy of the highest, the most real paternity: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” (Psalm 2:7), in this day which is eternity, the indivisible duration of unchanging being, in that ineffable act which has neither beginning nor end. (Ibid., pp. 53-54) My next post will conclude this series on Père Lacordaire’s conference about the inner life of the Holy Trinity. Posted by John O'Neill at 9:27 AM Labels: The Trinity in Christian Life Tuesday, October 20, 2009 Lacordaire on God’s Inner Life, Part 4 Is the generation of his Son God’s sole act, and does it consummate with its fecundity all his beatitude? In God, from the co-eternal regard interchanged between the Father and the Son, springs a third term of relation, proceeding from the one and the other, really distinct from them, raised by the force of the infinite to personality, which is the Holy Spirit, the holy, the unfathomable and stainless movement of divine love. As the Son exhausts knowledge, the Holy Spirit exhausts love in God, and by him the cycle of divine fecundity and life closes. As a perfect spirit God thinks and loves; he produces a thought equal to himself, and with his thought a love equal to both. Everything in nature teaches you that being and activity are one and the same, that activity is expressed by action, and that action is necessarily productive or fruitful; that the end of fecundity is to establish relations between similar beings; that relation is unity in plurality, from which results life, beauty, and goodness. And that God, the infinite being, the pre-eminently good, beautiful and living being is infallibly the most magnificent totality of relations, perfect unity and perfect plurality, the unity of substance in the plurality of persons; a primordial mind [the Father], a thought equal to the mind [the Word/Son] that engenders it, a love [the Holy Spirit] equal to the mind and the thought from which it proceeds; all the three, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, ancient as eternity, great as infinity, one in beatitude as in substance from which they derive their identical divinity. If human society would aspire to perfection, it has no other model to study and to imitate. It will find there the first social constitution in the first community; equality of nature between the persons who compose it; order in their equality, since the Father is the principle of the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; unity, the cause of plurality; thought, receiving from above its being and its light; love, terminating and crowning all the relations. If human society would aspire to perfection, it has no other model to study and to imitate. It will find there the first social constitution in the first community; equality of nature between the persons who compose it; order in their equality, since the Father is the principle of the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; unity, the cause of plurality; thought, receiving from above its being and its light; love, terminating and crowning all the relations. This concludes my series about Père Lacordaire’s conference on the inner life of the Holy Trinity. My next two posts will review why the works of mercy are an excellent form of active Trinitarian spirituality. Posted by John O'Neill at 10:56 AM Labels: The Trinity in Christian Life

Lacordaire Kindness & Humility

Sunday 1^st November 2009 All Saints

It is the solemnity of ALL SAINTS.

The Beatitudes of St. Matthew end, “Rejoice and be glad for your reward will be great in heaven”. (5: 1-12).

We distinguish between the Canonised Saints, the ones named, and the so called UNKNOWN saints.

There are so many UNKNOWN people who have themselves have countless other UNKNOWN persons.

Of the great UNKNOWN of souls we speak of is the language of the restricted view of men and women.

In God’s view there is NO UNKNOWN or ANONYMOUS person.

There are so many hidden saints we do not know. We think of the likes such as an hidden, unknown person, in the figure of Saint Therese of Liseaux. There was a great-turn of people for St. Therese in so many places in the country out for the pilgrimages for the visit of the relics.

She would have belonged to the countless hidden souls. It is only by an exception, she is called to tell the “Story of a Soul”. She wrote she would spend heaven doing good for others.

St. Bede refers to the 'patronage' of saints, in the same sense we understand as St. Therese and hidden souls ‘doing good for others’.

It is a powerful reminder that such is our goal also, no matter unknown, is to love, pray and serve souls in this life and in eternity. There is that lovely phrase of Lacordaire, the Dominican re-founder of the Dominicans after the French Revolution. (Present at this Mass, two Dominican priests, and the students from the University Chaplaincy).

Larcordaire speaks of “Kindness and humility are almost one and the same thing”.

We ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit for kindness and humility towards others.

MEDITATION OF THE DAY The Unity Between Humility and Kindness The Christian must be humble; and humility does not consist in hiding our talents and virtues, but in the clear knowledge of all that is wanting in us, in not being elated by what we have, seeing that it is a free gift of God, and that even with all his gifts we are still infinitely little. It is a remarkable fact that great virtue necessarily begets humility, and if great talent has not always the same effect, still it softens down a great deal of the uncouthness which clings inseparably to the pride of mediocrity. Real excellence and humility are consequently not incompatible one with the other; on the contrary, they are twin sisters. God, who is excellence itself, is without pride. He sees himself as he is, without however despising what is not himself; he is himself, naturally and simply, with an affection for all his creatures, however humble. Kindness and humility are almost one and the same thing. The kind-hearted naturally feel drawn to give themselves up to others, to sacrifice themselves, to make themselves little, and that is humility. Pride is more hated than any other vice, not only because it wounds our self-love, but because it shows a want of that virtue of kindness without which it is impossible to win love. Be therefore kind-hearted, and you will infallibly become humble. Your eyes, your lips, the features of your forehead will all begin to look different, and you will find that you will be sought after quite as much as you were formerly shunned. But how become kind-hearted? Alas! first of all, by beg­ging it earnestly and unceasingly of God, and then by striving always to seek others' pleasure and sacrifice our own to them. That is a long apprenticeship, but goodwill carries a man anywhere. FATHER HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE Father Lacordaire (+1861) was a great Dominican preacher who reefounded the Order of Preachers in France after the French Revolution. (Many years ago, in a secondhand bookshop, for 50p. I bought an 1875 volume of Rev. Pere Lacordaire, “God, Conference delivered at Notre Dame in Paris" - a rare find).