Off the Shelves 1

Our first stop in the collection is works on philosophy and psychology. This extract comes from Fr. Aegidius Doolan's Philosophy for the Layman (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1954) and is taken from the introduction, an essay on St. Thomas Aquinas. It is particularly appropriate since it points to the end of all knowledge, which is God.

St. Thomas insists that there is an order - and consequently a law - founded on nature itself, which no power on earth can alter or affect. Such is the relationship between effects and their cause - for instance between the world and God, or between children and their parents; or again between means and ends, between body and soul, between functions and their objects, between property and human life. Over and above, but not dissociated from, this natural order or these natural relationships there is the order of grace, the mysterious relationship established between men and God, so intimate that they may call Him "Father" and may look on one another as his children. The union established by this relationship between all men - however different from one another in race or colour or social station - St. Thomas conceived to be the very bond of peace in what Our Lord called the "kingdom of the children" - because those who belong to it are born again, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of men but of God.

It is at this point that for St. Thomas as for St. John the Evangelist "the last heaven opened" and he discerned what he so gloriously sung in his hymn Verbum Supernum, of which the conclusion O Salutaris is familiar to all Catholics. He saw the Supernal Word of Truth coming into this world, yet never ceasing to be at His Father's side. He saw Him hanging on the Cross. He saw Him in the triumph of the first Easter morning. And he saw Him again during the whole course of ages, and from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, offering Himself as a victim of that Love of Truth which is His very Life, poured forth in the chalice of His Blood.

It is St. Thomas' realization of all this that is expressed throughout his writings. Everything spoke to him of the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, which is the very end and meaning of all creation, and especially of human life. "Every creature," he writes, "as it is a created substance represents the cause and principle, and shows forth the Father. As it has form and species it represents the Word .. According as it bears the relation of order, it represents the Holy Ghost inasmuch as He is love."

Of Classes, Divisions and Sections

As a means to introduce readers to the works of the Library we are starting a new series of posts which will feature extracts from books in the collection. These extracts will cover various topics and to provide some continuity, will follow the order of the catalogue. For those unfamiliar with the Library's catalogue it might be helpful to provide a short introduction.

The catalogue follows what is known as the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), with some modifications. The DDC is the most widely used classification system in the world and divides information into ten main classes. Each class is further divided into ten divisions, and each division into ten sections. Each section can be further divided to classify ever more specific information. The unique feature of the DDC is that starting with a simple three digit number to represent the ten classes, modifying a single digit allows the divisions and sections to be generated.

For example, the class Religion has been assigned the number 200. By changing the second digit to a '2' we arrive at the division Biblical Studies (220). By again changing the third digit to a '7' we have the section Epistles (227). This section can be further divided by adding '.9' so we have the Catholic Epistles* (227.9) and again by adding a '0.02' we finally arrive at the First Epistle of St. Peter (227.92). One can thus conceive the DDC as a game of addition which could be extended to encompass thousands of individual subjects.

Getting back to the Library's catalogue, one will notice that it specialises in the following classes: Philosophy & Psychology (100), Religion (200), Literature (800) and History (900), which should not come as any surprise. Therefore if you are after books on Social Science (300), Languages (400), Science (500), Technology (600) and the Arts (700) you can most certainly come in to the Library but it might be worth first visiting your local library or the State Library since they will have a greater range of books on these subjects.

Among the most recent additions to the Library's collection are the following titles:

A Danger to the State by Philip Trower
A Soldier Surrenders: The Conversion of St. Camillus de Lellis by Susan Peek
A Walk to Rome by Dennis Larkin
A Yearbook of Seasons and Celebrations by Joanna Bogle
Christian Theology by Alistair McGrath
God is Near Us by Pope Benedict XVI
Memory and Identity by Pope John Paul II
Swimming Against the Tide edited by Angela Kennedy
Teresa of Avila by Archbishop Rowan Williams
The Glass Walking Stick and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Modern Theologians edited by David F. Ford
The Pope's Body by Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani
The Spirit of the Liturgy by Pope Benedict XVI
The Spiritual Direction of Saint Claude de la Colombiere transalted by Mother M. Philip IBVM
The Spiritual World of Issac the Syrian by Fr. Hilarion Alfeyev
Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity by Otto F.A. Meinardus
Virginity by Fr Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

Two Allrounders

The twentieth century has brought with it an expansion of Catholic literature in English-speaking lands that still bears on, and out, our thesis that Catholicism is a mental and moral force no less enlarging and energising than conservative and constructive. An array of names be cited from almost every quarter of the globe that is bewildering - not only from numbers, but still more from the great variety of literary fields in which individuals have achieved distinction. One or other will range from poetry to metaphysics; from preaching to parody; from archaeology to fiction; from politics to mysticism. We shall prefer, then, to consider names rather than genera, but we have but little plan in our survey, and no desire to assess degrees of merit.

If the most versatility ought to claim our earliest notice, then surely Fr. Martindale and Mgr. Knox should stand in front. With the serious zeal that has marked the work of both in the pulpit and has not forsaken their printed word, with the advantages derived from high educational opportunities, they have combined creative gifts of imagination and humour. Hence the complex charm of such a production as Fr. Martindale's "Goddess of Ghosts" and Mgr. Knox's "Spiritual Aeneid". Both men are earnest in scripture study, in controversy, and in pushing social reforms.

From the Story of Catholicism in English Literature by Rev. G. O'Neill SJ, published by the Australian Catholic Truth Society

On Librarians

Dante Alighieri by an Unknown Master (1530)

From the National Gallery of Washington

The phrase "a lover of learning" can have an edge to it. The many stories of the ignorance of librarians spring from the fact that when a post had to be found for somebody a librarianship was often the most convenient form for the patronage to take. There need be no limit to the number, and the title is an honourable one.

It was such a librarian who disgraced himself by making a great search for the Inferno of Dante and coming back and telling the would-be reader that the work did not exist; that which Dante had written, so far from being anything to do with the inferno, was a Divina Commedia. Quoted by Douglas Woodruff (1897-1978) former editor of The Tablet, historian and journalist.

NB The Inferno is the first of the three books that comprise the Divine Comedy, the others being Purgatorio and Paradiso, and can be readily found under Italian poetry (851's). It is considered a masterpiece comparable to St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theolgiae or Fra Angelico's paintings.

Book Review of Jesus of Nazareth

Miss Tara Peters has written a review of Pope Benedict XVI's most recent work, Jesus of Nazareth, which will appear in the Library newsletter. The following extract is itself a review in miniature:

The Successor of St Peter has composed something remarkable in response to pickled relativism. Jesus of Nazareth confidently answers the questions of modern man with a purity of academic enquiry. The Holy Father has shared the fruits of his contemplation, and perhaps inadvertently, provided a valuable companion to works presently issuing from the Holy See. This volume concentrated upon events from Our Lord’s Baptism to His Transfiguration. These events are telling signposts for an introduction to the Prophet whom men would heed, and know face to face. We await the concluding volume with great enthusiasm.