Oriens Journal of the Ecclesia Dei Society Unless the Lord builds Especially for those of an of activists to contemplatives that is excellence by St Benedict and St Bruno, activist bent, one of the great imperiling the Church – and has killed by St Francis of Assisi and St Dominic temptations we face is to imagine Christian society – from within. Guzman, by St Teresa of Avila and St that the things we do are – or John of the Cross. Throughout the Islamic world should be – important. today there is a ferment as men The fascinating thing about these Big plans, great ambitions: they consider what must be done to restore pillars of civilization is that their fascinate us, and we yield to their the power that once was Islam. The ambition was not to be in the world allure. Projects we conceive beyond talk is of caliphates, armies, deeds and and to achieve great things. They our powers to fulfill and into them we did not want to exercise influence in plunge unprepared by knowledge of the Church, in the state, or in society. self or of the rôles we have presumed They did not want to be great popes, to play. Setbacks, defeats, humiliations Public square bishops, canons, priests, princes, accumulate; and finally, unless we should yield soldiers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, have learned from our history of folly, professors, or ‘movers and shakers’ of disaster strikes. For some the learning to private any kind. They did not even want to is hard, for others impossible. Doomed be modest, unnoticed, good popes, by want of sight and the measure of chamber. bishops, priests … or ‘movers and things, they tread the mill of ambition. shakers’ of any kind. They wanted Some, eventually, are chastened; others nothing but God, to be alone with are unhinged; the simple die meek but blood. Great and terrible plans are in Him and available for his service. unwise; the proud despair. motion. The new and ‘asymmetrical’ And for this they sought detachment, silence and stillness – and, necessarily, The private square warriors of Muhammad are making such a din of preparations that their that threefold renunciation of means, To build something like a great presence among us, and their plans, of procreation, and of autonomy that society – or to rebuild it once destroyed are no longer secret. That is one provides the paradigm for a life lived – requires less action than inaction, model for making a civilization. solely in God. less design than contemplation, less Another is that offered by our own energy expended than accumulated, High, higher, highest society. Again clamour: meetings, plans, less noise in the public square than One of the many confusions to legislation, protests, debates, news, silence in the private chamber. The have entered Catholic thought in commentary, propaganda, building up, great societies we are concerned with recent times is one that disguises tearing down, claim, counter-claim, here – the Catholic Church (near from Catholics the fact that the indignation, recrimination, prattle mortally wounded) and Christendom model of life represented by these – and the thump and roar of popular (completely destroyed) – do not great people is objectively the highest culture. require activists for their restoration life that anyone can live. We call it so much as contemplatives. It is, in Set against both these is another – – with dry, numbing technicality fact, in great part the disproportion and that is the model represented par – the religious life. The necessary continued page 3 Summer 2005 1 Oriens Oriens Page 1 Volume 10, Number 2 Editorial – Unless the Lord builds Summer 2005 Published by the Ecclesia Dei Society Religious life, not secular, is the foundation of GPO Box 2021, Canberra ACT 2601 Catholic culture www.oriensjournal.com Page 4 Editor Gary Scarrabelotti Obituary – Michael Davies RIP Contributing Editors Rev Fr Ephraem Chifley O.P. Page 7 Gerard McManus Stephen McInerney Obituary – Dr Robert Edgeworth RIP Martin Sheehan Page 8 Layout Luna Graphics Letters from America Kirk Kramer reports American events Oriens is the Journal of the Ecclesia Dei Society, a lay association of Catholics who foster, nurture and promote the traditional liturgy. The Society’s name is Page 9 inspired by the Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, issued in 1988, in which Farewell, son of St Bruno the Pontiff asked for a “wide and generous application” of the norms governing use of the liturgical books of 1962 to those faithful of the Latin rite who felt an Robert Reavis bids farewell to a Carthusian friend attachment to the traditional liturgy, which His Holiness called a “rightful aspiration”. Membership of the Page 11 Ecclesia Dei Society includes a subscription to Oriens. To join, simply fill in the form below and return to: Triumph of the East The Ecclesia Dei Society GPO Box 2021 Canberra ACT 2601 Anthony Brown says there is no plot. Islam really does want to conquer the world. I hereby apply to join the Ecclesia Dei Society: Annual Ordinary Membership $30 Pages 14-24 5 year Supporting Membership $150 Life Membership $600 Reviews Martin Sheehan reviews The Right Nation. Or Please send me more information. Name Stephen McInernery reviews Marcel Lefebvre: A Address biography. Christopher Dowd OP reviews Looking Again at Telephone the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger: Signature Date / / Proceedings of the July 2001 Fontgombault Liturgical Conference 2 Summer 2005 Oriens continued from page 1 and belated re-discovery of the high definition” to be brushed impatiently life. God is not, of course, limited by value and irreplaceable character of aside. It is of vital practical history, culture, traditions, modes of the lay vocation has unleashed, in importance. Unless we understand life, or even by His sacraments. It certain circles, an enthusiasm and that religious life is the highest state of is clear that the lives of perfection exaltation that naturally comes with life – and why it is so – then we cannot and contemplation can – and should making a great find. But the pleasure understand why a genuine Christian – be lived in the midst of the world culture is impossible without the has been rather too great and lingered and in new secular, as distinct from over rather too long. As so often houses in which men and women give ancient monastic, forms. God willing, happens when pleasures are taken up everything to be with God. there will be more of them. What, immoderately, a fogginess of mind God is the Alpha and the Omega: however, God has chosen, He does and a blurriness of vision set in. This the beginning and the end. Those not unchoose. What He has set up particular exhibition of the symptoms that are nearest to Him are those upon the foundation of His saints He has obscured from view the summit of most like Him; and those most like does not annul. The models He has Christian life upon which one enters Him are those who are chosen to be fashioned in the traditional religious the company of Benedict and his as He was: poor, chaste, obedient; communities are perennial and friends. Many are called, but do not and having become most like Him, normative precisely because they are hear, or cannot see the path. and nearest to Him, they receive not secular and thus acutely subject On the intellectual plain the upon them the impress of the A and to the motions of time and cultural problem arises, in part, from a failure . So it is that in houses where the to draw distinctions. While it is true religious life is lived to the full that alteration. In fact, the marked that the best for one person might we encounter a presence that is the changes and variety that we see in be to be a layman and for another presence of God – and, where God the development of secular forms of to be a priest, what is best for those is present, good things are kindled Christian life render them dependent particular people is not the same and brought to their highest end. for their authenticity upon models that as the best or highest life to which This is why the religious house is the stand aside from the flux of history. It Christians can be called. For one centre of Catholic civilization: with is to those models the Church must for whom it is right and fitting to the rise of the monastery civilization return if the new and the secular are be a layman, it is wrong-headed and arises; with the endurance of the not to become disconnected from the unfitting to be a monk (or to want to monastery civilization endures; and story of Catholic experience. be one contrary to wise advice). So with the decline of the monastery In the meantime, there is no way too it is wrong and unfitting for one civilization falls away. This is not who is called to the religious life to a work of man; of this we must be that we can force the pace. To attempt it aspire (contrary to wise advice) to the clear. Human plans and action are would mean yielding to the temptation to lay state. We are dealing here with futile. Nisi Dominus action – the very thing that compromises our disponibilité to the providence of God. hierarchies. They are normal in the “Unless the Lord builds the house, Meantime, what we can and should do is life of grace – not to say the whole of they labour in vain that build it.” creation – but in our culture we find (Ps 126).