the Legion of little Souls does exist, and they did become manifest in the Little Flower. True, they get on our nerves more than they edify us - prec… - Ida Friederike Görres

I've come to the end of von Hügel's voluminous work on Catherine of Genoa. For such outlay in erudition, it's basically an unrewarding book (for me!), but full of interesting side-lights...Curious, for instance, that Catherine, always universally cited as the recognised authority, the most important and competent witness to the nature of Purgatory, should actually never have had a vision of it - neither as shewing nor as visiting in spirit, as other mystics did..Her statements are pure conclusions, analogies, based on her own spiritual experiences of suffering and bliss: "So that's what it must be like in Purgatory!"

The sins of our educational system (Catholic): How we ourselves were wronged by it and how we wronged others in its name. What people call moral training is really a political activity - representing a particular community and its vested interests, which is why it is so liable to political sins and blunders.

I'm reading Günther Anders' Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen (The Antiquity of Man)..That bit about Promethean shame impressed me..observations about the shame of being oneself, the reluctance at stepping out of line, of being forward, of being looked at. This is entirely true to life...Yet it's just as natural to man to want to be seen, to want to be outstanding, to be regarded, as to want to hide - and both these instincts - for that's what they are - clash, often with equal force...How clearly I see the Little Flower in this light: from earliest days the focal point for her whole family, yet on the other hand sincerely desiring to be hidden, taking the veil - and so wonderfully unveiled to posterity, revealed to the world, set up as an image, i.e. to be looked at!