Note Return to text — PART II

“Love is reinforced by this solidarity of the Christian communion, for in it Christ becomes more real, and things are apt to be seen here sub specie aeternitatis in their true proportions. Such vision of reality will over and over again be translated into action and consecration. The common worship, if it is the act of all, and done in deep seriousness, passes out of the formal into the effective, with or without mystical rite or element, it becomes communion, and we understand in a new and quieter way what the early Church meant by its doctrine of the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is not bound by our choosing, but it is possible for us to become more receptive. It is easy to see how men have come to the view that through the Church the gift of the Spirit is mediated.”[Footnote 6]