Saturday 21 December 2013

Adeste Fideles

We'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers and friends a very happy and holy Christmas as this will be our last blog post for a little while.

The Carmel Books blog will be back in the New Year, unless anything unusually interesting happens in the meantime - like our Russian friends suddenly sweeping over a degenerate and decrepit western Europe for our sins, before themselves converting to the True Faith, as foretold in many alleged prophecies.

But until then, a very happy and holy Christmas to one and all.




Friday 20 December 2013

What We Catholics Believe

Come the New Year Carmel Books, with the kind permission of Daphne McLeod, founder and Chairman of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, will be producing and distributing MP3 CD's of Daphne's catechism talks entitled  'What We Catholics Believe: The Timeless and Objective Truths of the Catholic Church'.

They'll be made available from us for just £1.00 each; the idea being that Catholics who take the Faith seriously, and who are concerned for the souls of those raised in the New Order wasteland, will be able to cheaply supply, or distribute in bulk, some basic Catholic catechism, in parishes throughout the land.

Daphne McLeod taught for forty years in Catholic junior and primary schools, teaching Religious Education on a daily basis. As a member of the Catholic Evidence Guild, she used to speak regularly at Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park.

Since retiring she's worked tirelessly to defend the Faith through her Chairmanship of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, the publishing of The Flock newsletter and at Faith of Our Fathers conferences.

Copies can be reserved from Carmel Books now by phone or email.

CD Content

1. About Almighty God (38 minutes)
2. About Ourselves (34 minutes)
3. The Fall, Original Sin, and the Promise of a Redeemer (39 minutes)
4. The Blessed Trinity (37 minutes)
5. The Incarnation and Redemption (44 minutes)
6. Sanctifying grace and baptism (36 minutes)
7. Jesus' Life and Teachings (41 minutes)
8. The Church and the Bible (40 minutes)
9. Prayer (38 minutes)
10. The Mass and The Blessed Sacrament (35 minutes)
11. The Moral law and the Sacrament of Penance (43 minutes)
12. Our Blessed Lady (40 minutes)
13. The Sacramental System and the other Sacraments (43 minutes)
14. The Communion of Saints (38 minutes)
15. The Four Last Things - Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell (38 minutes)
16. Ecumenism

Thursday 19 December 2013

The Conciliar Church and The Catholic Church

Some readers are possibly wondering about use of the term 'Conciliar Church' in a previous blog post. Does use of the term 'Conciliar Church' merely signify the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, or does it mean something else?

It means something else. The term describes an alien body of religious beliefs - the heresy of Modernism that St. Pius X defined as "the repository of all heresies" - functioning as a harmful, almost deadly, parasitical invader within the material structures of the Catholic Church.

At the Second Vatican Council the necessary treatment to destroy this parasitic disease was done away with allowing the disease to spread to epidemic and then pandemic proportions. The Conciliar Church constitutes a false religion that has, to enormous degree, seized hold of the physical structures of the Church.

The St. Athanasius of our own times described the Conciliar Church as follows:

"It is a question of the radical incompatibility between the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church, the Mass of Paul VI being the symbol and the program of the Conciliar Church… This Council represents, both in the opinion of the Roman authorities as in our own, a new Church which they call themselves the 'Conciliar Church'… All those who cooperate in the application of this overturning accept and adhere to this new Conciliar Church, as His Excellency Mgr. Benelli called it in the letter that he sent me in the name of the Holy Father last 25th June, and they enter into the schism…
 
What is schism? It is a break, a break with the Church. But a break with the Church can also be a break with the Church of the past. If someone breaks with the Church of two thousand years, he is in schism. There has already been a Council which was declared schismatic. Well, it is possible that one day, in twenty years, in thirty, in fifty years - I don't know - the Second Vatican Council could be declared schismatic, because it professed things which are opposed to the Tradition of the Church, and which have caused a break with the Church…

… We are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church, and for the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong. That Conciliar Church is a schismatic Church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, all already condemned by the Church in many a document, official and definitive....

… The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church…

… In so far as the new Church separates itself from the old Church we cannot follow it. That is the position, and that is why we maintain Tradition, we keep firmly to Tradition; and I am sure we are being of immense service to the Church…
 
… I believe that I have the right to ask these gentlemen who present themselves in offices which were occupied by Cardinals (who were indeed saintly persons and who were defenders of the Church and of the Catholic Faith) it seems to me that I would have the right to ask them, 'Are you with the Catholic Church? Are you the Catholic Church? With whom am I dealing?' If I am dealing with someone who has a pact with Masonry, have I the right to speak with such a person? Have I the duty to listen to them and to obey them?...

… How can one avoid the conclusion: there where the Faith of the Church is, there also is her sanctity, and there where the sanctity of the Church is, there is the Catholic Church. A Church which no longer brings forth good fruits, a Church which is sterile, is not the Catholic Church…

… Exactly the same day nine years ago on the 21st of November, I drew up a manifesto which also brought down on me the persecution of Rome, in which I said I can't accept Modernist Rome. I accept the Rome of all time with its doctrine and with its Faith. That is the Rome we are following, but the Modernist Rome which is changing religion? I refuse it and I reject it. And that is the Rome which was introduced into the Council and which is in the process of destroying the Church. I refuse that Church…

… The Conciliar Church, having now reached everywhere, is spreading errors contrary to the Catholic Faith and, as a result of these errors, it has corrupted the sources of grace, which are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments. This false Church is in an ever-deeper state of rupture with the Catholic Church. Resulting from these principles and facts is the absolute need to continue the Catholic episcopacy in order to continue the Catholic Church…

… This is how the succession of bishops came about in the early centuries of the Church, in union with Rome, as we are too in union with Catholic Rome and not Modernist Rome

…To stay inside the Church, or to put oneself inside the Church - what does that mean? Firstly, what Church are we talking about? If you mean the Conciliar Church, then we who have struggled against the Council for twenty years because we want the Catholic Church, we would have to re-enter this Conciliar Church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion. It is not the subjects that make the superiors, but the superiors who make the subjects.
 
This talk about the 'visible Church' … is childish. It is incredible that anyone can talk of the 'visible Church', meaning the Conciliar Church as opposed to the Catholic Church which we are trying to represent and continue. I am not saying that we are the Catholic Church. I have never said so. No one can reproach me with ever having wished to set myself up as pope. But, we truly represent the Catholic Church such as it was before, because we are continuing what it always did. It is we who have the notes of the visible Church: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. That is what makes the visible Church…

… one cannot help thinking of the 'seat of iniquity' foretold by Leo XIII, or of Rome losing the Faith foretold by Our Lady at La Salette.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Masonry's Man of the Year?

Do the Grand Orient or the Grand Lodge announce their 'Man of the Year'?

Probably not, but there is an outstanding candidate for the 'revered' title if they did.

On 14th March 2013, the Grand Orient of Italy issued a public statement that praised the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

"... a Church of the people will discover its capacity to dialogue with all men of good will and with Freemasonry which, as the experience of Latin America teaches us, works for the good and progress of humanity, as shown by Bolivar, Allende and Jose Marti, to name only a few. This is the 'white smoke' that we expect from the Church of our times".

In 1999 Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio was elected as an honourary member of the Rotary Club of Buenos Aires.

Fr. Edward Cahill, commenting on the non expidere (which he explains means a prohibition) issued by the Vatican against the Rotary Club and other associations like Friends of Israel in 1929, in the pages of his book Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement , writes that:

"The Rotary international organisation may be given as another example of White Masonry. Although its professed object is to 'encourage and foster high ethical standards in business and the professions,' and to make the ideal of service the basis of all enterprise, the Code of Morals which it puts forward is purely naturalistic..".

Tuesday 17 December 2013

LGBT 'Person of the Year'

LGBT is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender.

Their longest-running, largest circulation, magazine in the USA, The Advocate, has now chosen its 'Person of the Year'.

They write:

"Time magazine points out the unusual group of eight bishops that Pope Francis has convened to advise him regularly. Among them is Cardinal Oswald Gracias of India, who this month publicly condemned his country's criminalization of homosexuality. India's Supreme Court had just issued a shocking ruling that reinstated punishment of up to 10 years in prison for gay sex.'The Catholic Church has never been opposed to the decriminilization of homosexuality, because we have never considered gay people criminals,' he said, according to Asia News".

... "As same-sex marriage looked on track to become legalized in Argentina, Bergoglio argued privately that the church should come out for civil unions as the 'lesser of two evils'. That's all according to pope Francis's authorized biographer Sergio Rubin. Argentine gay activist Marcelo Marquez backed up the story, telling the New York Times in March that Bergoglio 'listened to my views with a great deal of respect. He told me that homosexuals need to have recognized rights and that he supported civil unions, but not same-sex marriage' ".

Is there any difference?

In 1992 a book was published called Amchurch Comes Out, recording the sodomite agenda and paedophile scandals prevalent in the Conciliar Church in the USA.

The Advocate 'Person of the Year' seems determined to write the sequel.

NewChurch Comes Out.

Monday 16 December 2013

Horns of a Dilemma

Time magazine designed an interesting cover graphic to represent their chosen 'Person of the Year'.

The photograph is positioned to give the appearance of a pair of horns protruding from the head.

It could be an unfortunate coincidence, of course. The highly experienced graphic designers and editors employed by Time may just not have realised.

But it does bring to mind the warning of Our Lady of La Salette that Rome would lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist as well as Cardinal Manning's study of The Pope and the Antichrist, originally published under the title 'The Present Crisis of the Holy See tested by Prophecy'.

Saturday 14 December 2013

Our Lady of Guadalupe and The Conquest of Darkness

Thursday marked the anniversary of the Holy Mother of God causing her image to be miraculously imprinted on the Tilma, or cloak, of the converted Aztec Indian Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, in the presence of the Archbishop of Mexico City, on 12th December 1531.

Miraculously preserved from deterioration for more than 430 years, scientific research conducted over the past century has made a number of profound discoveries. These discoveries include reflected images from Our Lady's eyes of what appear to be the bishop, Juan Diego and others present at that moment, and the stars displayed on her mantle being a precise representation of the constellations as they would be positioned in the sky in relation to Mexico on that very same day.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe keep our own eyes wide open and protect them from being blinded and diabolically disorientated in this age of apostasy, ambiguity and compromise.



Friday 13 December 2013

Marian Retreat CD Fundraiser for Typhoon Victims in the Philippines

Carmel Books is pleased to be able to announce that stock is on its way of a newly produced Box Set of C.D.'s to bring a Marian Retreat to hearth and home

Entitled 'Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary', this excellent box set of five C.D.'s was recorded in February, 2013, in Esker, Co. Galway at a retreat given to Carmelite Tertiaries in Ireland by Fr. Fabrice Loschi.

The CD has been produced as part of a fund-raising effort to help victims of the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.


Track List

The Power of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 19:40 mins
Prayer and the Carmelite Vocation - 27:45 mins
The Immaculate Conception - 24:57 mins
St. Joseph - 31:18 mins
Annunciation and Visitation - 28:47 mins
The Purification and Cana - 42:17 mins
Daily Life - 33:01 mins
The Passion - 32:58 mins
St. John and Mary Our Mother - 25:45 mins
Fatima and the Holy Rosary - 26:58 mins
Guadalupe - 30:47 mins
Sext - 7:08 mins


Thursday 12 December 2013

Practising the Works of Mercy

Carmel Books is blessed to be in a position to provide auxiliary help - by supplying miraculous medals, scapulars and plastic rosaries - to groups of faithful Catholics who attempt to live the Faith by practising the Works of Mercy with the homeless, the imprisoned, the sick and other needy members of our crumbling society.

From time to time we are also asked for prayers on behalf of poor souls who would otherwise have no one in this life to pray for them:

"We ask for prayers for the repose of the soul of Philip (Pip) Booth who died recently. His body was not found for several days. He was a regular guest at our early soup kitchens in Canterbury. He also came on the first CVM holiday near Rye where he joined us in a cottage on the beach, rented by a kind CVM supporter. 

This made a big impact on him, and on his return home he determined to improve his lifestyle which he did and was then able to acquire a decent flat. On this holiday he also learnt how to say the Rosary and he often told us that he was saying it as frequently as he could and asked for several replacements when he lost it. 

May Our Blessed Mother pray for him and the repose of his soul". 

Wednesday 11 December 2013

On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times

In 1946, Father Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. wrote a short work in Latin entitled De sanctificatione Sacerdotum secundum exigentias nostri temporis - On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times.

This important work has just been translated from the Latin and newly published. An initial stock of the book arrived at Carmel Books this morning.

"Its central theme is the urgent need of a deeper faith, both amongst the faithful, to enable them to stand firm against the principal errors of our day, especially against the materialist and atheistic spirit of the Communist and Liberal creeds; and also amongst the clergy, so that they would be able to communicate this gift to all Christians.

In developing that theme he discusses the duty which falls on every priest, not excepting secular priests, of tending towards Christian perfection.

He stresses the exalted nature of this state of perfection as revealed in the eight beatitudes, which are concrete expressions of that perfection; and in the supreme precept of love of God and one's neighbour, which commands the perfection of charity, not as something to put into practice at once, but as the end towards which all the faithful must be striving, each one according to his own particular calling in life, either as a married person or as a priest or as a religious, whether in sacred orders or not.

But if the faithful in general, in their state of life, have this duty of constantly tending towards a greater love of God and their neighbour, and towards the full perfection of charity which will be found in Heaven, how much greater is the obligation of priests to make a similar effort in order to be true lights of the world and the salt of the earth"?

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Orwellian Doublethink

On the day of Nelson Mandela's Memorial Service, we remember

"... the steadfast commitment shown by Nelson Mandela in promoting the human dignity of all the nation's citizens..."

1994:   Mandela becomes leader of South Africa

1996:   Abortion on demand becomes 'legal'. One million unborn children have since been butchered.

1998:   New Population Policy introduced to bring down fertility rate.

1998:   Sodomy becomes 'legal'.

1999:   Mandela retires. Job done.

"... I pray that the late President's example will inspire generations of South Africans to put justice and the common good at the forefront of political aspirations".

Monday 9 December 2013

New Saints for a New World

Kate Middleton was reportedly in tears.

David Cameron waxed lyrical about "fighting for freedom"and the "struggle for justice" and "these things will inspire generations to come", and ended with "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God".

Boris Johnson added that "If there was a secular system of canonisation in today's world, Nelson Mandela would be at the top of the list".

And that was just the Right-Wing of an Enlightened Establishment, never mind the outpouring of tribute from its Left-Side.

So who, exactly, are the Secular Saints of the Brave New World?

The official Statement of the South African Communist Party upon the death of Nelson 'Madiba' Mandela gives us some insight.

"At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party's Central Committee... After his release from prison, in 1990, Comrade Madiba became a great and close friend of the Communists to his last days".

Amidst the outpouring of mass hysteria sweeping a decrepit western world over its latest secular 'saint', the BBC felt it safe to admit that "In July 1962, Col. Fekadu Wakene taught South African political activist [read Communist] Nelson Mandela the tricks [read Murder and Mayhem] of guerrilla warfare [read Terrorism] - including how to plant explosives before quietly slipping away into the night. Mr. Mandela was in Ethiopia, learning how to be the Commander-in-Chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe - the armed wing of the African National Congress.

The African National Congress was funded by the Soviets and operated under the organisational influence of two men with distinctly non-African-sounding names: Albie Sachs and Yossel Mashel (otherwise known as Joe) Slovo.

Slovo succeeded Mandela as Commander-in-Chief of its terrorist wing and became Secretary General of the South African Communist Party in 1986. The savage gang-rapes and literal butchering of thousands of farming families, including the children, hadn't proved enough to subdue the Africans, whether white or black, and so 1986 became the very same year that Winnie Mandela's infamous necklaces - tyres soaked in petrol and placed over the arms and torso before being set alight - began to be presented in their thousands to the population of the townships who were reluctant to do the ANC's bidding. When the ANC eventually took over South Africa, Slovo was given his place in the new government by Mandela and Sachs was placed as a judge in the highest Court dealing with constitutional matters for the new regime.

Decades before, when The Secret Powers Behind Revolution were manoeuvring their point-men, like Slovo and Sachs, in Africa, and training young recruits like Mandela, the Pope's Apostolic Delegate for French-speaking Africa virtually stood as a lone voice in the wilderness warning all who would listen, in his Pastoral Letters, about the danger of a growing Communist Revolution throughout Africa and the solutions that would prevent it.

Few listened then, and few listen now.

Saturday 7 December 2013

First Saturday

Devotion of Reparation of the First Saturdays Requested by Our Lady of Fatima

On 13th July, 1917, Our Lady said: "You have seen Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. In order to save them God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart... I will come to ask for Communion of Reparation...".

On 10th December, 1925, Our Lady returned with the Child Jesus and spoke to Sr. Lucia about true devotion of Reparation to Her Immaculate Heart. Jesus spoke first: "Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make acts of reparation to remove them."

Then Our Lady instructed Sr. Lucia about the First Saturday devotion.

What does Our Lady ask all of us to do?

"I promise to assist, at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who:

1.   On the First Saturday of five consecutive months

2.   Make Sacramental Confession

3.   Receive Holy Communion

4.   Recite five decades of the Rosary

5.   Keep Me company for fifteen minutes whilst meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary

6.   With the intention of making reparation to Me".

Friday 6 December 2013

First Friday

Promises of Our Lord in favour of those devoted to His Most Sacred Heart

1.   I will grant them all the graces necessary for their state in life.

2.   I will establish peace and union in their families.

3.   I will console them in all their pains and trials.

4.   I will be their assured refuge in life and more especially in death.

5.   I will bestow the blessings of Heaven on all their undertakings.

6.   Sinners will find in My Heart the fount and infinite sea of Mercy.

7.   Tepid souls will become fervent.

8.   Fervent souls will rise rapidly to greater perfection.

9.   I will bless those homes wherein the image of My Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured. I will imprint My love on the hearts of those who wear this image. I will also destroy in them all disordered movements.

10.   I will give to priests who are animated by a tender devotion to My Divine Heart the gift of moving even the most hardened of hearts.

11.   Those who propagate this devotion will have their names inscribed
on My Heart, never to be effaced from it.

12.  I promise thee, in the excess of the mercy of My Heart, that My all-powerful love will grant all those who communicate on the first Fridays of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance: they will not die in My displeasure, nor without having received the Sacraments. My Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

Sacred Heart Nightly Devotion

Thursday 5 December 2013

Meet the Publishers - St. Edward's Press

St. Edward's Press first started publishing in 1993, its first work being a devotional calendar with particular emphasis on British saints.

It operates under a mission statement, or maxim, known as AIDA. These letters stand for 'An Independent and Different Approach', and the maxim helps St. Edward's Press remain focused on providing important and interesting subject matter that it identifies as not being catered for anywhere else.

It has put this maxim to good use in the past few years by publishing two acclaimed books that shine a light on the underhand and destructive work of the anti-Catholic, New World Order orientated, European Union. 

Europe on 387 Million Euros a Day charts the extent to which the European Union's insidious, unbidden power has imposed itself from the local high street to the waters off the coast of Africa.

Brussels Laid Bare presents the story of how a newly appointed Chief Accountant, responsible for the entire EU budget, attempted to make its finances transparent and accountable only to suffer a systematic campaign of persecution aimed at silencing her.

Its most recent publication is the history reference book, From Ur to Us, that was ferociously attacked by the Mass Media, presumably because it pays no heed to the politically correct historical narrative formulated by the modern Powers-That-Be, but instead presents an accumulative ton of neglected and ignored historical fact that taken together presents a strong case for the desirability of a return to Catholic Order.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

The New Arians

Today is the Feast Day of another great Doctor of the Church, St. Peter Chrysologus.

St. Peter Chrysologus is known for his succinct and defining sermons, explaining in particular the texts of Holy Scripture, the Mystery of the Incarnation and the heresies of Arianism and Monophysitism.

Arianism, although it had been condemned at the Council of Nicea in 325 and was defeated intellectually around the time of St Peter Chrysologus' birth and the Council of Constantinople in 381, still held sway in parts of Christendom and threatened political danger for the Church. It continued to do so for several hundred years.

The Arian heresy, of course, disputed the very nature of the Holy Triune God.

Belloc, in The Great Heresies described it as "... a declaration that Our Lord was as much of the Divine Essence as it was possible for a creature to be, but that He was nonetheless a creature.... He was created (or, if people did not like the word 'created,' the He 'came forth') from the Godhead before all other effects thereof"

In Saint Athanasius, Defender of the Faith, Michael Davies wrote that "Its essence is that the Son is somehow less than the Father, subordinate to him".

Bishop Rudolph Graber, warns us in his book Athanasius and The Church of Our Time, first published in 1973, that "What happened over 1600 years ago is repeating itself today...". He went on to write "In his encyclical on Modernism Pope Pius X called it the repository of all heresies. And indeed, if we look back at the early Church, we can see the old false doctrines of those days reappearing in new garb. Arius, who denied that the Logos was of one substance with the Father, lives on.... The central dogma of our Faith is to all practical purposes denied".

The Arian creed went something very much like this:

"I believe in God.
Not in a Catholic God.
There is no Catholic God.
There is God.
And I believe in Jesus Christ, His Incarnation.
Jesus is my teacher and my pastor.
But God the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator".

St. Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.



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Tuesday 3 December 2013

Saint Francis Xavier

On the Feast of the great Jesuit missionary to Asia, St. Francis Xavier, we are pleased to be able to offer the monumental 740 page work on his life written by Fr. Henry James Coleridge.

This is the classic life of the great Saint Francis Xavier who in the sixteenth century renewed the labours and the miracles of the Apostles.

Weaving his text around 124 full-length original letters written by the saint, Father Coleridge brings him to life and allows us to know him intimately: the arm fatigued by so many baptisms, the gentle voice that converted, the heart that loved and was loved, the eye that penetrated the soul and the future: the miraculous cures, resurrections, deliverance from impending disaster, the bilocations, the gift of tongues, the burning zeal to spread the kingdom of Christ, the tender charity for every misfortune, the daily combat to rescue souls from damnation, the faith that saw the truths of the catechism as clearly as we see material objects, the terrible anathemas thundered against those who obstruct the Church’s mission – and finally the death, alone, at Chan, yearning to win China but summoned to glory at just 46 years of age.

Monday 2 December 2013

Sermons of St. Francis de Sales for Advent & Christmas

"St. Francis de Sales, famous Doctor of the Church, is one of the greatest masters of the spiritual life - a wise, learned and gentle teacher for all.

This volume consists of nine sermons preached during Advent and Christmas of various years from 1613 to 1622, the year of his death.

Recognising the central importance of the Mystery of the Incarnation, the holy bishop uses many figures and analogies to explain how we can prepare ourselves for this great feast.

He speaks of the importance of following Mary, the Star of the Sea, who guides us to her Son without fail.

He also brings out many details regarding the mission of St. John the Baptist, in particular pointing out St. John's noble practice of absolute humility despite facing the greatest imaginable temptation to pride and ambition.

These sermons are a veritable revelation of the unsuspected treasures which lie concealed within the familiar words of the Christmas story".