Contemplation and Culture

Extract

In these last months England, individualistic, active, bustling England, has been called upon to defend for Europe, and for the world, the precious treasure of Christian Culture. That culture has, however, been handed down to us, not by an active, utilitarian philanthropy characteristic of all that is not mere self-seeking in England to-day, but by the tradition of Christian contemplation incarnate in the contemplative orders of the Church, and in particular in the Order of St. Benedict. England has become permeated with that American pragmatism which discountenances contemplation as useless, and at best she retains a certain attachment to ‘useless’ knowledge and to art only as the remnant of the pagan classical period of enlightenment that forsook Christianity and the supernatural order and adopted a purely natural type of contemplation and culture. If the British victory for which we hope and pray is, therefore, to prove itself worthy of its noble cause it would be necessary for the British citizen to return to a more integral Christian life which should include a contemplative culture that is basically supernatural.