Apart from a vigorous renewal of catechesis at all levels, what our Church needs in clergy and laity is a real deepening of the spiritual life. We become so intermingled with the world as to lose the fresh enthusiasm of the early martyrs and confessors. We are lacking in that zeal and self-sacrifice which won, in early times, England and Europe to the Faith.
Many Clergy perform their duties in a perfunctory way. To preach Christ effectually the priest must preach of the Cross from the pulpit of the cross.
We need Communities whose life enables them to study and practice the mysteries of the spiritual life. How far below most of us come from the standard of that “fulness of God” revealed in the New Testament! How comparatively little is known of the science of prayer, as developed by the great teachers and saints!
Some lay people say a morning or evening prayer and some clergy make meditation. But, in a truly religious home or rectory, those who dwell there should practice a life of devotion through regular daily offices and their prayers would bring a blessing upon the Church and thus especially enrich it.
-Adapted from The Works of the Rt. Rev. Charles C. Grafton (Volume 5), edited by B. Talbot Rogers, New York: Longmans, Green, 1914
The Cathedral Close 
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