Les Louanges à Marie d'après S. Antoine de Padoue, le Docteur Evangélique by Ferdinand Coiteux, O.F.M. (review)

108BOOK REVIEWS equilibrium between internal and external activity. From the illusions of his youth he turned to God through contact with the Mystical Body of Christ in the lepers. Imitation of the life of the Savior created the Franciscan Apostolate with its crowning stimulus in Franciscan poverty. Like Christ he progressed from a personal to a corporate apostolate by inspiring disciples to associate themselves with him and by preaching through example . To extend the influence of the friars, St. Francis founded an auxiliary apostolate in the Third Order, which for seven hundred years has been the living realization of Catholic Action by its universal appeal of brotherly love, by its force of interior life and exterior good example, and by its adaptation to the needs of the times. In the chapter on Franciscan inspiration of modern Catholic Action, Friar Baez stresses the "kingly priesthood" of the laity, and maintains that the Third Order is today what it was in the Middle Ages. The work concludes with a description of St. Francis as the leader of Catholic Action and of the Franciscan Spirit. Dr. J. M. Nunez Ponte considers St. Francis (pp. 185-298) as an example of Catholic Action in his love of nature, in his support of the Church, in his service to God and neighbor, in his crusade for Christ, in his restoration of the evangelic spirit, and in his triumphant actuality of our times. "The world," concludes Dr. Ponte, "will gain its peace and prosperity not from politicians but from the intervention of a saint. Napoleon once remarked while contemplating a picture of St. Francis of Assisi: "This saint has gained a greater empire with his girdle than I with my sword.' " The authors have succeeded to place into the hands of the apostles of Catholic Action a book which brings to mind the leading principles that for seven hundred years have inspired the great Tertiaries to carry PAX ET BONUM into the great brotherhood of mankind. Their work is of such a high class of excellence that even the most carping critic will not find any cause for censure. John M. Lenhart, O.F.M. Cap. St. Augustine's Friary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Les Louanges à Marie d'après S. Antoine de Padoue, le Docteur Evangélique . Traduction et Adaptation. By Ferdinand Coiteux, O.F.M. Montreal : Editions Franciscaines, 2080 rue Dorchester Ouest, 1946. Two volumes in small octavo. Vol. I, Pp. 142; Vol. II, Pp. 140. Ever since, and even before, Pope Pius XII, now gloriously reigning, pronounced St. Anthony of Padua a Doctor of the Church Universal, books, pamphlets and discourses in his honor have appeared in ever increasing numbers in every Catholic country of the world. And rightly so; for, if until now the Saint's beautiful doctrines have remained almost like "a light under a bushel", with the papal declaration Franciscan students have begun searching deeper and deeper into his sermons — the font of his theology — to detect the reasons which prompted the Holy Father to style him officially the "Evangelical Doctor". Particularly beautiful is St. Anthony's Mariology. It is like a continuous commentary on his Anthonian Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. His sermons on her Nativity, the Annun- BOOK REVIEWS109 ciation, the Purification and the Assumption are replete with Scriptural applications of the texts of the Old and New Testaments; with accommodation of biblical personages; and with metaphorical figures of speech taken especially from the Canticle of Canticles. He compares Mary to Eve, Judith, Esther, Jahel, and the Mother of Solomon. He calls Mary the morning star, the root of Jesse, a silvery moon in the fulness of its nocturnal glory; the splendor, the purity, the whiteness, and, through the Holy Spirit, the ardor of the sun; She is like the dew on a desert rock; like a gentle shower fruitifying the arid soil; like a refreshing breeze on a hot summer day; she is a lily in the fields, an olive from which the rarest oil is pressed, the perfume of the cedars of Libanon, the glory of the rainbow, etc. All these Anthonian and Biblical figures of speech formed the subjects of fifteen radio...