MEANING OF THE MEMORANDUM

By DOM BERNARD McELLIGOTT Today, as in all critical times, the Church advances the standard of the supernatural life. No other force will avail for the Christian reconstruction of society. For Catholics to cling to a conscious reliance on worldly success or material power would be clearly disastrous.
Ultimately, the fate of all humanity is affected by the inner lives of Catholics now, and the external social actions which are the fruit of that inner life.
Twentieth Century Catholicism
Twentieth century Catholicism has no more important task than that of rescuing us from a morass of material and individualist aims, and forming us upon Christ and Christian ideals.
To live and work for the re-Christianising of society—that is plainly the magnificent vocation of our age.
The Pope was reported the other day as saying that he thanked God to be alive at the present time, and we can see what he meant. The new stirring of spiritual sap, The awakening to a keener perception of the supernatural, the increasing interest in the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ with all its social implications, the growing consciousness (witnessed by Catholic writers the world over) of our need to " integrate" the natural and the supernatural, the hundreds, more probably thousands, of Christian heroes and martyrs produced by the sharp issue of Christ or anti-Christ in political and industrial fields; there is much to encourage us.
The Christ Life It is obvious that to make the world more Christian we must become more Christian ourselves. No amount of social, still less political, activity will build up the Christlife in society unless it springs from an inner life of Christian formation.
like, is the necessary basis for external activity of a Christian kind.
A slow growth it may be; but the point is that the active Christ-life germinating within, and the external fruit of it, are both necessary to formation in the Christian life, with the inner growth into Christ as the indispensable source of the external activity.
Active 'Participation
This twofold formation of the Catholic, the inner growth into Christ and the external Christian activity (the second springing from the first) is served, developed, effected, by the two great Catholic movements of our day—the Liturgy and Catholic Action.
The Church has for thirty years been recalling us to the Liturgy; urging us to base our lives of religion on the traditional Catholic Sacrifice and prayer, above all by actively taking part in the corporate Sacrifice of the Mass, the core and centre of Christian worship and spirituality.
The more recent call to Catholic Action by Pius XI is the summons to all lay men and women to take an active share, under the hierarchy, in Christ's apostolate. Catholic Action certainly includes all that comes under the heading of social and economic justice. [See H.E. Cardinal Pizzardo's pamphlet, "Catholic Action and Religious Assistance for the Workers" (Rome, 1937), not yet, so far as l know, translated into English. Perhaps the Y.C.W.
as feeding the hungry, instructing the
ignorant, comforting the sorrowful, and other works of mercy and kindness. We are beginning in England to bestir ourselves about both the Liturgy and Catholic Action. two great movements being put into separate compartments, becoming two distinct sections of Catholic life, each with its own followers.
This may happen unless we grasp the vital connection between them. Once understood, they are seen to he necessary to each other, to be complementary parts of the full Christ-life to be lived by every individual Catholic according to the vocation of each.
What is the relation between the Liturgy and Catholic Action?
The above five-point statement briefly answering these questions has been approved in detail by H.E. Cardinal Pizzardo (the President of Catholic Action) and 'Cardinal Hinsley.
Catholics in England will be interested to see (No. 4) that the primacy of the Liturgy is clearly recognised.
Both the Liturgy and Catholic Action require each other to develop a full Christian life. But the part played by the Liturgy, rightly understood, in our forma