en St. Philip Neri and St. Catherine of Genoa. The Catholic reform, then, was in no respect a`counter-reformation' in the chronological order; nor was it any more soas regards the process of its development. Those who promoted it had nointention of combating Protestantism and halting its progress... The true reform was not directed *against* an enemy; it wasundertaken *for* God, *for* Jesus Christ, as a protestation of unwaveringloyalty. Before emerging as a body of doctrine, a disciplinary canon, anecclesiastical code, it was an immense and prodigious movement of fervour,which uplifted the Christian soul almost everywhere (more especiallyperhaps in Italy and Spain), a kind of spiritual sublevation operated bythe saints... HER HISTORY WRITTEN BY THE SAINTS At the critical moment when the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Churchwas about to recover possession of herself and regain her rightful aspect,it was as it had always been; her authentic history is written by thesaints. The reform was brought about by means of a spiritual rebirth,that is to say, by a deepening of faith, a return to vital sources. Thepractice of prayer put an end to doubt and laxity, to the divorce betweenfaith and life. It is characteristic that the really decisivepersonalities of the Catholic reform were all mystics, whose primary andindeed sole purpose was to know God, to love Him and to serve Him. CaptainInigo, wounded at Pampeluna, wrote no treatise on anti-heretical strategy,but "Spiritual Exercises;" nor was it rage against the Lutheran thesis,but love of God, that lit up the face of St. Cajetan before the crib inSanta Maria Maggiore on Christmas night 1517. That the Catholic renascence originated in prayer is of profoundsignificance. The whole difference between Catholic reform and Protestant`reformation' is summed up in these words uttered by a monk of shiningfaith, Giles of Viterbo, in 1512: `Man must be changed ...
