The Ideal of Reparation

Father Raoul Plus, S.J., addresses this volume to Catholic souls whose eyes are open and whose hearts are resolved to be generous with God, and Madame Cecilia of St. Andrew's Convent, Streatham, has rendered it into English for the same class of readers. The Preface names the malady of the age in a single stark phrase, the triple crucifixion of Christ, of the Church, and of France, together with the millions of slain whose sight leaves the indifferent unmoved. Against such listlessness the author recalls the old prophetic challenge, “Quid hic agis, Elia?”, and asks whether any will rise to make reparation for the injuries done to the Divine Majesty. Issued by Burns Oates & Washbourne, who style themselves Publishers to the Holy See, the book carries a quiet guarantee of orthodoxy for a devotional subject so needing it. Its plan is set out in three parts, treating why reparation should be made, who ought to make it, and how it should be made.

In the Introduction the author defines reparation in its threefold sense of restoring, compensating, and expiating, and shows that in the moral order no creature can render the equivalent of an insult offered to God save by the oblation of his own self, a pain freely taken and duly proportioned re-establishing the disturbed equilibrium as the guiltless offers himself surety for the guilty.

The book then presses this obligation upon Catholics in every state of life, the simple faithful, religious, and priests alike, declaring reparation a fundamental duty of our religion and an urgent demand of the present hour. As an example of what such generosity can accomplish, he borrows from the “Journal of a Convert” the scene of a revival meeting at the Albert Hall in London, where fifteen thousand men, moved by two preachers from America, rose crying “l will” until the vast hall rang again.

Yet he insists that no emotional spectacle is needed, for the whole matter rests on the plain words of Christ, “Si quis vult venire”, and on the soul's quiet answer, “Here am, Lord, I will”. The world, he concludes, shall be saved only when a sufficient number of Catholic souls have devoted themselves to this hidden and imperious work of reparation.

156 pages.

Author: Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

Year: 1921