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OCTOBER 26, 1957,
THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
ELEVEN
BOOK REVIEWS
EDITED BY EILEEN HALL
3087 Old Jonesboro Road, Hapeville, Georgia
Each issue of this Book Page
is confined to the patronage of
Mary, Mediatrix of Ail Graces,
with the hope that every read
er and every contributor may
be specially favored by her
and her Divine Son.
MERE MARIE OF THE URSU-
LlNES, by Agnes Repplier,
(Sheed & Ward, $3.50).
(Reviewed by Elizabeth Hester)
Originally published in 1931
and now re-issued by Sheed &
Ward, Mere Marie of the Ursu-
lines is the happy result of the
fine writer dealing-ivith the per
fect subject. Probably even Ja
pan has produced f e w artists
with a style more economical,
composed, and diamond-lucid
than Philadelphia’s Agnes Rep-
plier’s, and few subjects other
than Mere Marie have by their
very nature deserved such a style
as Miss Repplier’s to do them
justice. Thus this book is alive
not with just its subject’s great
dignity, but with the author’s as
well. This combination is par
ticularly gratifying because ap
parent harmony between the
saintly and their biographers is
much rarer than we might hope.
This deficit, it may be supposed,
need have nothing to do with the
merits of writers as writers, but,
more often, may be attributable
to the understandable difficulty
the writer’s moral intellect has
in grasping a sense of the plane
on which; a saintly subject has
lived.- In the case of Mere Marie
of the Ursulines if Miss Repplier
has not brought to Mere Marie
quite the famous nun’s own vir
tue, she has at least brought the
eminently becoming reticence of
not assuming too much too
glibly. Without once deriving un
documented conclusions for Mere
Marie’s thoughts and feelings,
Miss Repplier nevertheless con
veys a splendid idea of the great
Canadian Ursuline’s stature. To a
large extent she has done this
not by intimate probing of Mere
Marie herself, but, rather, by
discussing the kind of world Mere
Marie lived in, and by describing
the results of the nun’s having
been there; the success of this
method would indicate, possibly,
some idea of how it is almost
always necessary for the unsaint-
ly to speak effectively of God and
His saints.
McAvoy, C.S.C., (Regnery, $G.0C).
(Reviewed by Elizabeth Hester)
In the latter part of the 19th
century, close on the end of the
Civil War, the fire under the
melting pot of diverse elements
in United States citizenry was
crackling with great spirit. Part
of the crackle included a tug-of-
war between American Catholic
bishops and colonies over the
best measures for establishing the
Catholic position _ in the adoles-
c e n t nation. For example, to
what degree should Catholic la
borers affiliate themselves with
secret societies that were labor
unions as much as pseudo-reli
gious groups? Or, should it be
permissable, or even preferable,
for Catholic children to attend
public rather than parochial
schools? As the problems multi
plied with the rapid growth of
the young country, the split with
in the Catholic hierarchy and
between certain Catholic publi
cations widened continuously.
Bishop John Ireland, the domi
nating figure in the liberal side
of the battle, carried his. magnetic
personality to Europe and there
enlisted a widespread support for
an active liberal Catholic politi
cal, stance which c a m e to be
known as “Americanism.” Sub
sequently an American priest’s
biography (Fr, Isaac Hecker,
founder of the Paulists), trans
lated into French and touted by
some as the spirit of American
ism, was the occasion of a series
of bitter and even perversely
slanted attacks on Americanism
by some elements of the Euro
pean press. It was never estab
lished that Hecker’s book con
tained the heresies claimed for
it, but nevertheless a furor was
aroused that was settled only in
1899 when the Holy Father put
out a letter condemning the here
sies reputed to have been held
by some Americanists. This, in
brief, is the story Fr. McAvoy
tells.
A meticulously researched
book, "The Great Crisis" may
well be a historian’s joy. On the
other hand, Fr. McAvoy writes
with such unrelieved. seriousness
that the weight of his work may
occasionally become a little stup-
ifying to the unscholarly seeking
only amusement or a painless
notion of American Catholic his
tory.
him from distractions outside his
personal circle. Notwithstanding,
he had a distinguished career as
editor, playwright, historian, and
lecturer before he became an
Anglican minister, an outstand
ing preacher and theologian.
His progress through the mazes
of journalism, theatre, literature,
and Anglo-Catholicism, to the
reality of the Christian faith will
be of interest to those particular
ly concerned with English reli
gious life and values. Since com
ing into the Church .he has writ
ten some scholarly and valuable
contributions; “The Great Prayer”
is a notable example.
It is more than interesting to
note his thoughts on his convers
ion. His own words are best: “No
one, I think, has been able to
describe a conversion in terms
that are objectively appropriate
As in the language of the myst
ics, analogies which give only
the shadow of the substance have
to be used.” But one thing he is
quite certain—that the gift of
faith comes from God’s mercy
alone and, like Chesterton, he
feels that all the old controvers
ies and arguments “are less than
dust to me because my name is
Lazarus and I live.”
THE GREAT CRISIS IN
AMERICAN CATHOLIC HIS
TORY 1895-1900, by Thomas T.
CORRECTION: The name of
the priest who promoted the lit
urgical movement in America,
and whose, biography by Paul B.
Marx. O.S.B., was reviewed in
the October 12 issue of The Bul
letin, w a s Virgil Michel, not
“Michael” as our review erron
eously stated.
THE WALLED GARDEN, by
Hugh Ross Williamson, (MacMil
lan, $4.00).
(Reviewed by Cecilia L. Hines)
“The Walled Garden,” in spite
of its highly intellectual tone,
manages to be a telling and warm
account of what might be. called
“a delayed conversion.”
Mr. Williamson is the son and
grandson of Protestant ministers
and lived, in his youth, in a
“walled garden” which protected
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MOTHER OF FAIR LOVE, by
Augustina Schroeder, translated
from the Spanish by Veronica
Kirtland, (Bruce, $3.50). May se
lection of the Catholic Library
Foundation.
(Reviewed by Margaret Atwood)
How did it feel to the little
Jewish maiden, Mary, to be chos
en to be the Mother of God? In
this dramatic, fictionized version
of Mary’s life, a Uraguayan au
thor has attempted to depict the
tremendous thing, that happened;
to the young girl who became the
woman closest to Christ, Mother
of His human and His Mystical
Body. Mary’s inner life is painted
against a vivid background of
Judaic life, from the time of her
betrothal to the days after- the
finding of her Child in the tem
ple, when He “came to Nazareth
and was subject to them.” Al
though it all happened nearly
2000 years ago. Mrs. Schroeder
makes the life of the Holy Fam
ily seem so real that it might be
occurring near us today. The
reader shares Mary’s ecstacies of
joy as well as her sorrows in her
daily life with the Son of God.
Added to this insight into the
mystery of the Incarnation, the
reader receives the bonus of a
new understanding of the Jew
ish Faith and how it served as
the foundation for the work done
by Mary’s Son. Psalms from the
Old Testament are woven through
the story of the New, as Mary
meditates and prays.
: “Whoever loves always seeks to
please the lover and guess his in
clinations and secret desires,”
Mrs. Schroeder writes. “M ary
lived as closely as any human
person could to the heart of the
Creator. Her intuition was re
fined by sanctity. She wished to
give herself entirely, which is a
characteristic measure of love. . .”
Mrs. Schroeder’s devotion to
Our Lady is ingrained from child
hood. She is one of eight child
ren, all of whom were named
for Mary, by parents who were
married on the Feast of the Im
maculate Conception. The trans
lator, Veronica Kirtland, is a
iChilian-born writer who now
lives in Port Washington, New
York.
the yardstick by which is meas
ured all conduct, thought and
ethics. The logic of the presen
tation defies argument. The en
tire work is beautifully written,
at times reminding us of some of
the writings of St. Francis de
Sales. Each section contains much
of a thought provoking nature
and good meaty substance. We
particularly appreciated the sec
ond section which might be term
ed an analysis of St. Augustine
and his “Confessions” as applied
to mankind in general. The fourth
section too, “Jesus Christ and
His Church,” offers much sub
stance and sound logic. In fact,
it is difficult to select or recom
mend any one section as out
standing or offering more than
another. The entire subject mat
ter is well worth absorbing from
cover to cover to strengthen the
Christian, to confuse the agnostic
and to open the door of intellect
to the atheist.
NUNS SO LOVABLE: A book
of Cartoons, by Joe Lane, (Mich
ael Book Company), $1.00.
This is another of those laugh
able, lovable books of cartoons
concerning the Little Nuns, by
Joe Lane, as always he tickles the
funny bone with the oh-so-human
and oh-so-incongruous situations
depicted. This is a good cure for
the blues!
what Mounier would call “the
moral gentry.” In this novel he is
occupied with the difficulty of
the acceptance, even the recog
nition, of Grace by those whose
lives have been deadened with
the kind of morality and pioug
habit which has no basis in gen
uine charity. “Lines of Life” was
first published in the early twen
ties under the title “Destins” and
has since been twice translated
into English. It tells of a middle-
aged woman whose life is mo
mentarily disrupted by her pe
culiar attraction for a degenerate
boy, an attraction which breaks
up for a. short space of time the
patterns of religious complacen
cy in which she has been im
mured. By the end of the novel,
however, she has almost forgot
ten her peculiar experience and
is again “one of those dead car
ried down the stream of life.”
These are three extremely val
uable books.
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THIS MYSTERIOUS HUMAN
NATURE, by James M. Gillis,
C.S.A., (Scribner’s, $3.50).
(Reviewed by Margaret G. Smith)
This book is a complication of
thirty-six conferences by the late
Father Gillis. These are separate-
ecl into five parts, covering hu
man nature in general in relation
to self, God, Church and finally
Christianity. “The Touchstone”,
LETTERS TO MEN AND WO
MEN, by Fenelon, (Newman
Press, $4.00).
THE CHARACTER OF MAN,
by Emmanuel Mounier, (Harper,
$6.00).
LINES OF LIFE, by Francois
Mauriae, (Farrar, Straus and Cu
dahy, $3.50).
(Reviewed by Flannery
O’Connor)
Although one of these books
is a collection of letters written
in the 17th century, one a scien
tific work, and one a novel, they
are all three remarkably alike
in spirit and all three have as
an underlying concern the en
trance of love into the world
through the medium of the hu
man character despite its natural
distortions.
Fenelon’s letters are directed
to lay men and women who wish
to achieve holiness in the world
and who must combat, in addi
tion to their internal distortions
of character, the distortions of
17th century French court socie
ty. The letters show a marked
respect for the individual tem
perament and a delicacy of ap
proach that gives them a lasting
value, both as literature and as
spiritual direction. It is interest
ing to note that Emmanuel Moun
ier, in his scientific study of
man’s character, has occasion at
least once to quote from Fene
lon’s letters. Mounier’s person-
alist approach is closely akin to
Fenelon’s courtesy.
Mounier’s study, reduced here
from its 800 original pages to
314, is a compendium of the
contributions of modern psycho
logy to the study of the person,
from the purely physical aspects
of man to his spiritual possibili
ties within the limits of charac
ter. The first chapter, titled, “To
ward the Mystery of the Person,”
is perhaps an adequate descrip
tion of the direction of the entire
book and confirms the author’s
contention that his science,
though, honest; “is a fighting
science.” He is fighting for the
mystery of the person as against
any kind of determination, though
always within the limits of the
given. There is little doubt that
this book is, as claimed on the
jacket, the major work of “one of
the really great men of our time.”
The only pity about this edition
is that it has been so drastically
abridged.
The distortions that Francois
Mauriae has frequently concern
ed himself with in his fictions
are the distortions in the lives of
THE WORSHIP OF THE
CHURCH, by William O’Shea,
(Newman, $7.00).
(Reviewed by Leo J. Zuber)
Father O’Shea, a faculty mem
ber of Saint Mary’s Seminary.
Baltimore, must have fascinating
classes; even in print, he has dealt
in a most engaging manner with
the subject of the liturgy. De
signed and planned basically as
a seminary tool, this volume can
not with full justice be labelled
a textbook. It is far more than
that.
Liturgy may be easily and
simply defined, as Pius XII has
done, as the “public worship is
offered to the Father by our Re
deemer as Head of the Church;
it is also the worship offered by
the society of faithful to its Head,
and through Him to the eternal
Father.” But, simple definitions
aside, it develops that there are
so many volumes on parts of the
-liturgy that the need became ap
parent for a single volume cov
ering the subject in survey fash
ion. This the O’Shea volume ap
pears to do.
The first seven chapters are an
introduction and orientation to
the liturgy as a subject of study
and of research, as a sacred
science; four chapters cover phy
sical aspects as the church struc
ture and its contents, vestments
and other visible, tangible ob
jects. One chapter is on the litur
gical year. The Mass in detail
sacraments, divine office, the
greater sacramentals and extra-
liturgical devotions are covereo.
in the seven concluding chap
ters. Two appendices, a topical
bibliography, and an index, con
scientiously done, complete the
volume of text. Ten reproduc
tions in black and white of al
tars, church interiors, pulpits, and
other liturgical matter, each one
of classic character, illustrate the
volume.
For anyone with a living in
terest in the Church and its mis
sion, and this includes laymen as
well as religious, the O’Shea vol
ume has much to offer in stim
ulation and in advancement of
that interest. There is a place for
it in every Catholic home. It is
as serviceable and as utilitarian
as a- dictionary or an encyclope
dia; there is a difference, it is
highly readable. Surely the New
man Press merits commendation
for the excellence of its products
of the publisher’s art.
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