WHEN SERVICE MEN COME HOME

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 35, Issue 5, 1 July 1944, Page 12

WHEN SERVICE MEN COME HOME

Primate on Church Life

The Archbishop of ' Canterbury writes m the Canterbury Diocesan Gazette and Notes:— • "While we wait for the new development m the war, which must shortly begin and may have begun before these words - are read, we must also look beyond to the days that will follow the war when men and women begin to return to their homes. That will not happen all. at once. Whenever the European war ends, whether m this year' or later, there is likely ' to be need to keep large forces m Europe, and there will still be the. Japanese war to bring to an end with victory there also. But it is high time for us, to be taking stock. During their time m the Forces many have •thought about religion as they never

did before, and some have for the first time found a living faith- m God. How far is that life something m which they will feel that their needs are met? "We should all be thinking how far our services are alive with real devotion and intelligible to those whose hearts may be won but who have had little instruction. "As I go . about the diocese I "hear the lessons read by : many different people — some clergy and some laity; I am now and then to wonder whether the reader is at all clear what the Pr-ophet or sometimes the Apostle is talking about, . and am still more often quite sure that the rather infrequent Churchgoer (for whom we ought to have a special concern) neither knows what it is all about nor has any means of discovery. There are several books giving- appropriate and useful introductions. Will the clergy consider making use of these. We ought to do all we can to help those who attend the services of the Church to enter into the meaning of each part with understanding and reality."