The School of Love & Other Essays, May 5

THE LAY APOSTOLATE

[continued from yesterday]

...These things presupposed, let us now descend to something very practical.

To begin with there is one thing, and after all the one important thing, for the spread of the Church which every man can do.

He can look to himself; he can set a good example; con­scious as he is that wherever he goes he car­ries the honour of the Church with him, he can look to it that that honour is not tarnished.

Sucn a man will in public and before others do nothing that is unworthy of a member of the Church; such a man will do everything which is expected of him; if he has power over others, he will do what in him lies to see that they too are worthy of the Church to which they belong.

By such means was Christianity mainly spread at the beginning; by such means is it being spread to-day; though - alas! that we should have to say it - it is because of the neglect of this first duty among those who bear its name that Christianity in many places fails and falters.

But there are many who can say with the young man in the Gospel: "This I have observed from my youth; what else can I do?" For these, then, let us see whether we can make any suggestions....


[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918