The Light of the East March 1942

But we.owe it especially what we may call the Chritian Synthesis the building up into one system commanded by the principle of charity that " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God above all things and thy neigbour as thyself" of all the spiritual elements that lay scattered either in the Gospels and the tradition of the Fathers or in the literature of Greece and Rome partly preserved in t [...]. I am the Alpha and the Omega the First and the Last the Beginning and the End." As the spire of a cathedral all his writings point like a huge and magnificent finger to God—God to whom we owe everthing and in whom we shall find all things. [...] As an art critic has put it a cathedral was built to be not only the home of God but also the home of His children : the place where they might by all manner of means learn to know and love Him and to enjoy not only the intimacy of His love but the security of His protection. [...] The word of the priest enters the soul and brings light and power ; the voice of the priest rises calmly above the storms of passion fearlessly to proclaim truth and to exhort to goodness : that truth which elucidates and that gooliness which solves the greatest problems of hman life Most sublime then is the dinity of the Catholic priest. [...] Finally it is that which frees him from all worldly entanglements and gives him the time and energy to work for others to go out at any time to succour the poor and the sick to go anywhere to distant coutries to uncivilized tribes living in the most remote regions to bring to them the true knowledge of God the meaning of life which alone can form the basis for future culture and ci