The Water and the Fire

By Gerald Vann, O.P. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Never one to mince his words, Gerald Vann, O.P., confirms this warning from the Book of Proverbs. The people are perishing and the preacher’s task is of the utmost urgency: to restore vision before the darkness is absolute. The deep evil underlying the common misery and discontent of the post-war world is a psychological crisis. This crisis of the human soul threatens to destroy humanity more completely than anything material, replacing the redeemable messiness of reality with the irredeemable void of unreality. It is this impoverishment of spirit which dictates the defects of technocratic society: the frenzied tempo, the severance of natural and domestic roots, the loss of symbols, of the vocation of woman, of organic community life, the disintegration of education, and the degradation of matter. To both these characteristics and their cause, Vann offers remedy, resolving the modern dilemma in the strong light of Chri