Notes 141

Many write, few do.

You did not suffer custodians but pupils to come to you.

At a funeral Mass the deceased’s eldest son, who has not been to Mass in years, gets up to receive Communion. At a Holy Day Mass, two visibly bored teenagers, dragooned to church by their mother, get up to receive Communion. What priest, knowing that, observing this, would deny the three the Eucharist?

We, whose teacher said, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God (Matthew 19:17)—why are we so free and easy with the word “great”?

In future we shall hear less of America as the exception.

Soon true religion will be sought as people ask, To Whom shall we go?

Art, too, can be ascetic.

One prays, not to go back, but to go forward.