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Our Faith must be beautiful if it is to hold souls. Far from us the illusion that it is sufficient to tell our people what to believe and what to do as one gives medicine to a sick person, tasteless or perhaps even unpalatable! Perhaps we priests too readily become the victims of certain well-worn phrases which seem to be the product of lazy shepherds, and which appear to make every dogma just a blow on the head which the believer should receive thankfully. Some piece of doctrine is given him, not as bread to eat and to enjoy, but as a stone to carry about. Far from us, I say, such facile belief in our people's readiness to be contented believers; they are hungering and thirsting for the beauties of their Faith, and unless we meet them in their legitimate desires our true contact with souls becomes less and less every year.
(Martin) Anscar Vonier, OSB
Firmly I Believe and Truly
The Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England
An Anthology of Writings from 1483 to 1999
Ed. by John Saward, John Morrill, and Michael Tomko
[2011: Oxford University Press, p. 594]
