The Retreat House is a generating station of spiritual energy, where the 'live wire' is created and the Lay Apostle sent out throbbing to restore all things in Christ,' and to establish the peace of Christ in and through the Kingdom of Christ.' In other words, the Retreat House begets the militant Catholic who is not afraid to confess his faith and to work and suffer for his religious convictions and principles. M. Besnard, a French Free-thinker, has well described the Retreat Houses as 'Schools of the Lay Apostolate. ... On the avowal of their promoters they are destined to create and develop militant Catholics. Although they have the external appearances of religious meditations, they are in reality training grounds for the fight.' A few opinions of Catholics of other lands will help us to realize what the enclosed retreat proposes to effect. His Excellency Mgr. Radini-Tedeschi put his views as follows before the Twelfth Italian Catholic Congress, when the Lay Retreat Movement came up for discussion :

The Exercises of St. Ignatius form the 'Catholic Soldier's Manual.' . . They transform the soldier of the world into the soldier of Christ, true and brave; they form the Catholic layman into an apostle of deep religious convictions, full of zeal for the glory of God. . . . They teach the Catholic laity how to think with the Church and with the Pope, and to get rid of that immense illusion which is the false prudence of the flesh, and of that Utopia by which worldlings attempt to effect a conciliation between the Devil and God.

Count Thellier de Poncheville cried out in an outburst of enthusiasm at the General Assembly of French Catholics in Paris, while speaking of the Lay Retreat Movement :

It is thus that will be formed in our country bands of apostles: men of activity, men of leisure, men of the liberal professions, Christian employers, Christian workers, all animated with a like love for Jesus Christ, all resolved to work for His reign in society, as in individual souls. What a power! See them in the roar and hurly-burly of the crowd, in the strife of politics, in the din of commerce, in the bitter disputes of science, as in the deafening grind of the workshop. See them coming out of the Houses of Retreat, to go forward, calm, and resolute, without ever recoiling, and flinging in the face of the world the standard of the Cross.

Mgr. Archambeault, Bishop of Joliette, an earnest

promoter of Lay Retreats, said of them to the Canadian Catholics :

To form an élite, to organize Catholic forces, to oppose compact and disciplined lines to the enemies of the Church is the true aim of collective enclosed retreats. In these retreats everything indeed tends to fill those who follow them with light and strength, to destroy in them human respect, and to determine them to become in their respective parishes, under the direction of the clergy, the mainstay of Catholic works, the courageous defenders of religion any time that occasion will offer. Alas! we only know too well such occasions are not wanting.

Surely, in the reconstruction of our country amid the countless difficulties of to-day, we have need of militant Catholics, active Lay Apostles, ready to leap into the breach, and to beat back paganism, old and new, wherever it appears in the ranks of contending and opposing parties, and to bear forward in all directions, and in all forms of public life, the God of Right and the Prince of Peace. If Ireland is to be a truly Christian State (and not another semi-pagan and secular State '), where Brutality and Brute force cease to be the final arbiters of disputes, where the Moral Law is held in reverence and respect, where Citizenship and Christianity are coterminous and mean the same thing, where material shibboleths that have grown threadbare are cast aside as worn out, where Christ shall come into His own and have no door slammed in His facewhether it be the door of a Government Department, of a Chamber of Commerce, of a Farmers' Club, of a Trade Union Hall, of a Primary, Secondary, or Technical School or any other Bethlehem or Bedlam, one may wish to supplement-then it is Laymen and not Priests alone, who shall be the chief factors in effecting this result-live men, live wires, Lay Apostles, men of conviction who are prepared not to go down before a sneer about 'piosity' or whatever form it may take, in a word, militant Catholics who are convinced that Christ must get His true place in the public life of the Irish Nation, and, moreover, who are prepared to suffer in the attempt to secure it for Him. Such types are scarcely bred but in the Retreat House, and after much

brooding of the Holy Spirit. They will necessarily be comparatively few, but then, as Le Play used to say: 'To-day, twenty men, closely knit together, and uniting virtue to talent, would give a definitive impulse and direction to public opinion.' Indeed the vital force they can broadcast by word or pen, and especially by their pious active lives, will amply make up for their relative fewness in number. The Milltown Park Retreat House, with its limited sphere of operation, has given ample proof of what has been done, and therefore what can be done, as stated in the opening lines of this paper, and up to the present the Lay Apostolate in this country has had its most zealous exponents in these members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society who made a retreat there each year. It is not without significance that many of the keymen in the present Government are active members of that excellent Society, and in that fact one sees room for the extension of Catholic Social Activity through the Lay Apostolate, for the keymen control many ways of further development. The multiplication of the Lay Retreat Centres seems to be therefore a necessity, if we are to cope with extended opportunities which shall, in all probability, be soon afforded in different directions, as through them the Lay Apostles, then so necessary, can alone be readily created and multiplied.

Anyone who is aware of the multifarious activities centred round Myra House, Francis Street, Dublin, has ample evidence of the results of the forces generated and developed in the Retreat Houses at Milltown, Rathfarnham, and Baldoyle. Young men, and elderly men too, side by side (though on different lines) with young women, vie with each other in an endeavour to hasten the Kingdom of Christ. Visitation of Workhouse Wards, of General Hospitals, of common Lodging-houses for men and women, of the banned houses and wards where the unclean woman is socially ostracised, the conversion of non-Catholics, the instruction of them and Catholic grown-ups for the reception of the Sacraments, the undoing of matrimonial

tangles, all these and many more-a very settlement and hive of social activity-all conducted by these Lay Apostles, doing, in their spare time in the evening after work or business, and on Sundays, the works which were hitherto regarded as the exclusive preserves of the nun and the priest. The growth and development of this Lay Apostolate has been most surprising, and we can feel safe in prophesying that we are but in the beginning of a new era of Church development in Ireland. All that is necessary is the fulfilment of the present Holy Father's wish: 'We desire from our very heart that the practice of these Spiritual Exercises should daily extend, and that Retreat Houses should become more numerous and more frequented.''

RETREATS FOR THE ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY

Respect for Church authority and prompt obedience have been ever characteristics of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Good social position and education, which often beget the questioning type of mind, make them but all the more ready to sink personal views, submerge their judgment, and to follow not merely a command, but even a wish expressed. The following circular-letter addressed to the Conferences throughout Ireland, gives but further evidence of the thorough Catholic spirit that imbues the members of the Irish Vincentian Society, and proves them once again the pioneers in the van of Catholic progress. This is their response to the Pope's appeal, quoted above :

DEAR BROTHER PRESIDENT,

COUNCIL OF IRELAND,

30 SOUTH ANNE STREET, DUBLIN, 7th March, 1923.

The Council of Ireland again desire to draw attention to the desirability of establishing Week-end or enclosed Retreats for our Members, wherever possible to do so, and are anxious that your branch should take the matter into consideration at once.

Such Retreats have been held at Milltown Park, Co. Dublin, at Christmas and Easter, and during week-ends, for some years past, and have been of untold value to the Members themselves and a wonderful means

1 Apostolic Constitution of July 25, 1922, declaring St. Ignatius Loyola Patron of Retreats and Retreat Houses throughout the Catholic world.

of generating zeal for all charitable activities. A second house has been established by the Jesuits at Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, for such retreats. The Council of Ireland drew the attention of our branches to the possibility of establishing similar Retreats in different parts of Ireland in the year 1919. As a result of that suggestion, successful enclosed Retreats were made in Newry and Monaghan, and a most interesting account of one such week-end Retreat appears in the Irish Supplement to the Bulletin for October, 1920. The Council of Ireland think that the time is now ripe to make another forward move in the matter, and would request you to lay the matter at once before your branch, and see whether it is possible to have such a Retreat for your members during the coming

summer.

The difficulties in the way are a suitable premises and a clergyman. The means of getting over the first difficulty are at hand wherever a Diocesan College exists. The opportune moment is when the students have just departed and before the staff attached to the College have been sent away. With the approval and co-operation of his Lordship the Bishop and the President of the College, it should be possible in many cases, if not in all, to establish an enclosed Retreat at that period for some days in the Diocesan College. Failing the possibility of obtaining the College or other suitable premises, the Council suggest to you the advisability of approaching the Rector at Milltown Park, or at Rathfarnham Castle, Co. Dublin, with a view to arranging for an enclosed Retreat there for such of your members as can attend.

Once the premises have been secured, the matter of a clergyman will present no insuperable difficulty. The President of the College and his Lordship will always be willing and able to assist you in such a matter. In order that the matter may be brought to a head by the time that the holidays in the Diocesan College commence in June, there is no time to lose; and the Council of Ireland would ask you particularly to take the matter into consideration at once, and see what the possibilities are. If this Council can aid you in any way it will be only too happy to do so. The Council will be glad to hear what has been the result of your consideration, what steps you propose to take, and what difficulties, if any, you find in proceeding. Please give this matter your early and serious attention, as no proposal could be more worthy of it.

We are,

Dear Brother President,

Yours sincerely,

J. A. GLYNN, President.

THOS. A. MURPHY, Hon. Secretary.

RETREATS FOR TRADE UNIONS

There is no need of apology for the inclusion of a retreat, which, if not 'enclosed,' may be described as very remarkable of its kind-an open retreat recently given in

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