NEWCASTLE CALLS TO EVERYONE .

AFTER London, Newcastle, The Vocations Exhibition at Olympia caught the attention of the whole country, non-Catholic as well as Catholic. Perhaps it even struck the non-Catholic world more forcibly than the Catholic. After all, we know a good deal about the work and life of the priests, religious, nuns who in their immense variety work ceaselessly at home and abroad in dedication to the Catholic faith in all its spiritual aspects. But in a world that has so largely lost the realisation of God and the meaning of dedication to His service, the exhibition at Olympia was a revelation of the life of service, of .beauty, of picturesqueness, lived by many, many thousands of men and women who are otherwise happiest in shunning the limelight of publicity.
It became evident that an exhibition of this nature should not be restricted to the capital, even though so many from all parts of the country travelled to London to see it. It carried the meaning and message of the Church in so graphic a manner that, apart from its main purpose, a sheer apostolic value demanded further exhibitions of our religious life wherever they could be suitably arranged.
The choice of Newcastle-onTyne for the next great exhibition is particularly happy. In London we may think of Newcastle as far away to the North, but a map reveals that it lies at the centre of the island on which we live, and there could be no better place for attracting visitors from the North of England and from Scotlandplaces where the Catholic faith is often very strong in urban districts, but where perhaps it is even less well known over wide spaces than it is in and near London.
THE diocese of Hexham and
Newcastle itself is known as one of the areas in this island where the ancient Faith is not only strongly represented, especially in the important industrial and mining areas, but practised with the special devotion, order and apos tolic zeal which the present Bishop has so notably fostered. Resting,
as it were, on the Catholic history which the great Northern college and,seminary of Ushaw represents, it looks forward to even greater days when the glories of Cuthbert, Bede, Aidan and many a martyr will be restored.
But in this diocese, as in every other, the times are such that one vital factor in the strengthening and fostering of the Faith needs to be attended to: the increase of vocations to the priestly and religious life on which the administration of the sacraments, the teaching of the faithful and so many other vital works must always depend.
In a way, this need arises from the very progress which the Church has made in our times. For the greater the number of the faithful and the more fervent their Catholic life, the greater is the need of priests and religious. But there is more to it than that. In the past, many vocations of men and women resulted from social conditions which made it natural for young people to find in the Church a possible solution of the problem of what to do in life. A variety of motives encouraged them to this course, and it was for the Church to raise and sanctify a vocation originally mixed. Today, the spread of higher education offers attractive secular careers to almost anyone willing to do the requisite preparatory work and in a position to do so. Inevitably, some who in earlier times would have chosen the Church no longer do so.
But if this has caused a temporary setback to the numbers of vocations, it can also be converted into a very great blessing. Indeed, it means that vocations today must spring from the purest spiritual motives, and this in turn means that the spiritual quality of our Catholic life must be ever more strongly fostered.
OUR families, our parishes and
• -• our schools must be true nurseries of a virile and deeply founded spiritual life. From them Catholic youth must come to make spontaneously the real choice between a life of Christian dedication either in religion or in the world.
No one can doubt that when our Catholic upbringing leads to this choice, this "election," as St. Ignatius put it, then the proportion of our young men and women who "elect" to become priests, brothers and nuns in the state so recently described and praised by the Holy Father will be proportionate to the Church's real needs as between apostles in religion and apostles in the world.
In this way, the whole problem of vocations is really thrown back on to the whole Catholic body. According to the quality of its spiritual life and Its prayer, so will be the quantity and quality of its vocations.
The Vocations Exhibitions, while they have their great value in drawing special Catholic attention to this need and in attracting the interest of non-Catholica in the life of the Church, are fundamentally a call to each one of us and all of us together to live our Catholic lives with a depth and a fervour which must be blessed by Almighty God with the full number of pure vocations required by His service.
The holding of an exhibition such as the one which opens at Gosforth this week-end is a call to Catholics everywhere in England, Scotland and Wales to pray and work with that whole-hearted trust in God's Providence and dedication to His Will and service which will ensure through His grace that the needs of His Church will be fully met.