The Year within the Year

...television-all this and, probably, things which are being worked out in laboratories today and which will astound us (if we are any longer susceptible of being astounded) tomorrow, apparently make it quite easy for the average man to obtain a complete picture, an accurate account, of all the things and all the events that matter almost as soon as they happen...

...and the unrest of India and South Africa...

...The December number of that invaluable periodical, Orate Frates, the organ of the liturgical movement (which we rejoice to see enlarged and greatly improved as proof of the progress of one of the most hopeful works now going on in the Church) is heartily recommended by us to those of our readers who desire to supplement and correct their ordinary reading of ordinary news affairs, by paying some attention to the news which the Church announces at the beginning of each year of the Church...

...we are doomed always to be out of date because of the very efforts we so feverishly make to keep abreast of the minute...

...In order to produce the gorgeous Christmas numbers of some of them, a whole regiment of poets and story-writers and artists must labor in the dog-days of summer to turn out snow scenes and blazing Yule logs, decorated with holly and mistletoe...

...to say nothing about the news reels in the multitudinous theatres, and the great and growing army of radio speakers who interpret or record "timely topics" by day and by night...

...But just literally turn it over, from page to page...

...the vast efforts of the greatest industrial society of all the ages to maintain and increase its economic stability...

...and all these things beg for our attention and for our thought, in the midst of the clamor of innumerable other topics and events: murder trials, prohibition sensations, political events, sports (pages upon pages of sports) book reviews, scandals, church unity movements, divorce stories, theatrical news and reviews...

...Most of us feel it, or are conscious of it, although it is not easy to define it clearly or briefly...

...This paradoxical situation is even more exaggerated in the case of the monthly magazines...

...But what about a new problem arising just as we are solving the old problems which have so long retarded the progress of mankind because of the geographical, racial and national factors isolating us from each other-factors which are now being transformed by modern intercommunication...

...The new problem undoubtedly has arisen...

...And as if all this were not sufficient to keep the people informed and enlightened as to what is going on in the world, and why, and to what purpose, there are the innumerable conferences, and seminars, and lectures, and conventions of scores upon scores of organizations formed for the express purpose of informing and enlightening the citizens...

...he has not time enough to keep up with the times...

...The Missal writes, so to speak, the editorial commentary upon this news...

...so that in his constant preoccupation to be "timely," the journalist becomes a sort of wizard, trying to conjure up moods or thoughts harmonizing with seasons or events still to come...

...Which fact brings us to the special problem alluded to above: the utter inability of the average man to do what all these agencies of modern civilization urge him to do-what indeed the central dogma of that civilization seems to demand, namely, to keep up with the age he lives in...

...For we never really can keep up with the times...

...So, it is true, he may...

...he cannot begin to spread it over all the subjects put before him...

...This in practice means that he must hark back to recollections or reflections concerned with similar seasons or events of the past...

...As you turn the pages, consider to what your attention and your thought are called...

...We do not say, read it all...

...This may strike our readers as a rather damaging confession of the inutility of weekly and monthly journalism, by comparison indicating the superior value of the daily paper...

...It is seemingly the realization of the daring vision of those prophets of humanity who have foretold the triumph of education-the furnishing of adequate and reliable information which, when it is properly understood and applied, must infallibly bring mankind to its golden age of peace and happiness...

...For this journal, like all weekly papers, is printed a week before the date it bears...

...He may write his Christmas message on the very eve of the great feast...

...to inform himself about what is going on in the world so he may understand its problems and aid in solving them...

...Maybe it will...

...The editorial writer for the latter class of periodical can, indeed, be apparently much more spontaneous and contemporary than his colleague of the weekly or monthly review...

...His faculty of attention is absolutely insufficient...

...The inventive genius of modern science perhaps reaches its supreme triumphs in matters connected with the intercommunication of mankind...

...It ushers in that year within the year of the world which goes its own unvarying course under the surface of the news of the world, and the problems of the world-generally unregarded yet dynamically connected with the exterior year of time, and the doings and problems of the exterior world...

...Or there is the domestic situation: the aftermath of the crash in Wall Street...

...Its nature may be suggested if we turn to any great newspaper on any day of the week-let us say, to that greatest of all newspapers, the New York Times...

...and so, verily, does he- hundreds of him, thousands of him, from Maine to California, from Illinois to Florida, in tens of hundreds of daily papers, printed by the tens of millions of copies...

...and the Communist intrigues in half a score of countries where labor struggles or revolutionary movements provide fire for the inflammatory oil of Communism...

...Take merely one subject out of many, world peace...

...Who could do so and still have any of this precious time of ours left for anything else...

...airplane transportation...

...Some days there will be fifty of them: on Sundays nearer a hundred...

...And the aim of the liturgy is that every generation of Christians shall play its part in the Divine scheme...

...Meanwhile, agencies through which the raw material of all this vast business of news-gathering and commentary is collected and distributed, become ever more efficient and widespread...

...What is written for each number must be composed before the printing thereof...

...And these are only a few of the tremendous topics that the newspaper deals with...

...Well, here are the news despatches and special articles dealing with the civil wars in China, and the threatened war between China and Soviet Russia...

...the ecclesiastical year, the Christian year...

...Telegraphs, cables, wireless systems, including the despatch of pictures...

...To which may be added the thousands of clergymen whose sermons have become so closely identified in subject-matter, and often in mode of treatment, with the more sensational type of tabloid news sheet...

...This is the good, glad news which was first announced two thousand years ago at Bethlehem, and which the Church continues to announce and to expound, to explain, to urge upon us, each day of this spiritual year which is ushered in by Advent...

...It is endless...

...He may glowingly celebrate his country's might, majesty and supreme virtues amid the crash of the fireworks and the oratory of the Fourth of July...

...Some of that attention which is baffled and frustrated by the pressure of the news of the world might well be given by Catholics to this news of the Church-the real news, the central, the unperishing news: the news which if understood and properly applied would give us the true and only trustworthy criterion by which to measure and judge all other news...

...to keep himself abreast of the times...

...The season of Advent therefore shows us that Christ is the centre of the whole of the history of the worlds It is with the expectation of His coming with grace that it begins, and with the realization of His coming in glory that it ends...

...national and international hook-ups of radio speeches...

...and the difficulties in the Balkan states...

...while during the actual winter-time they must turn to summer themes...

...here are the despatches from half a dozen national capitals dealing with various aspects of the Disarmament Conference, and the doings at Geneva of the League of Nations...

...This reflection may serve as well as another to bring us back to the subject of Advent...