No, not Hamlet but the Catholic Directory for England and Wales. We reached the final stage on Friday and since then the team at Gabriel and I have been proof-reading. Last year's edition ran to 980 closely printed pages, so you can imagine how tired one's eyes become. Any mistakes are ultimately my responsibility but one relies on the accuracy and completeness of the submissions made by diocesan officials and others, and just occasionally one wonders whether that might be a bit rash. For a few brief days one probably has an unparalleled "knowledge" of every parish and diocese in the country. I say "knowledge", but names and statistics do not reveal as much as we would like them to. Sometimes I stand back and look at the Directory as a historian might: the life of the Church is glimpsed in its pages but never completely revealed. Printer's ink cannot capture grace.

Today's gospel led to some very personal reflections on the priests, levites and Samaritans in my life. Leaving aside the priests and levites, who are important enough in their own eyes without anyone's singing their praises, here are a few memories of some of my own "Samaritan moments" : the boy who came and talked about his hamster during one of the more excruciating parties of childhood; the woman who translated my limping castellano into good Catalan when a booking clerk refused to sell me a ticket for the last train home; the tired librarian in a strange city who gave a brilliant smile and made me feel less lonely; the person (man? woman?) who rescued me when I was knocked off my bicycle; the person who sent groceries when our larder was bare (we never found out who); and the multitudinous acts of kindness and consideration one meets with every day without fully registering them. Samaritans all, with not a priest or levite among them. You can probably compile your own list and give thanks as I do for all those anonymous helpers along the way who reveal something to us of God's love and compassion.

St Thérèse is a good example of a saint who manages to inspire despite everything her devotees have done to her. Quite early on, there were attempts to cast her as a saint in the sickly sentimental mould. Carefully editing out those parts of her autobiography at odds with their own ideas of holiness, Thérèse was presented as destined for a halo from birth: brought up in a "perfect" Catholic family, cultivating a childlike simplicity and dying young, she exemplified an ideal of sanctity that seems to appeal especially, I'm sorry to say, to men. The truth about Thérèse is so much more thrilling. The Little Flower was indeed of her generation, and there are passages in her writings which strike today's reader as unbearably coy; but there is also in Thérèse a core of steel — a truthfulness and determination to make the less courageous blench. She was ruthlessly honest about her own faults, prepared to say things that today would land her in trouble (the desire to be a priest can be spiritualized away until we lose all sense of how unthinkable it would have been for her contemporaries), faced the terrors of apparent loss of faith, and through it all held fast to her understanding of holiness realized in the ordinary, everyday events of life. In truth, there is nothing little about the Little Flower except the name.

We have a strict rule in community, that this web site and blog receive attention only when other duties have been attended to. No wonder, then, that there have been a few blank days and the weekly podcast is likely to appear mid-week. What have we been up to? There have been two books to see through the press; some audio books to record and send out; shopping, gardening, cooking, cleaning and minor household repairs to deal with (isn't it always the way that minor repairs, once tackled, have a habit of becoming major undertakings?); visitors to welcome; accounts to be written up; committee meetings to attend; letters and emails to reply to; and the daily round of prayer and observance to maintain. It doesn't sound like much, put like that, does it? But that is what monastic life is like most of the time: ordinary and humdrum in much of its detail. There are occasional surprises. Yesterday we received an invitation to take part in one of Gordon Ramsey's "Cookalong" T.V. programmes. For one moment I had a vision of G.R. and camera crew trying to squeeze into our not-very-big kitchen and the great man being put out of countenance by our indifference to his famously expletive-ridden language. Good T.V. perhaps, but not necessarily good monasticism. Today we remember St Jerome, a curmudgeon with a soft spot for nuns (good), a tremendous love of holy scripture (better) and, despite all the truculence and violence of his opinions, an immense love of God and neighbour (best of all). His memoria reminds me that we still have not decided when we are going to adapt the revised Latin psalter in choir, a decision we have been contemplating for at least five years. All we have to do is find time for a chapter meeting . . .

At present a number of petitions are flying around cyberspace inviting people to attribute blame for the present economic turmoil to this group or that. Some church leaders have also joined in with fairly direct condemnations of Wall Street bankers in particular. Time, I think, to recall that one of the great glories of the Roman Catholic Church has been the development of Catholic social teaching since 1891 and the publication of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labour). In 1931 Pope Pius XI condemned what he called "the international imperialism of money" and stressed the need for a social and economic order animated by justice (see Quadragesimo Anno, After Forty Years, 1931). John XXIII expanded on this in Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher, 1961) where he emphasized not only the State's obligation to consider the common good but urged the need for all to live as one community and reminded the Church of her duty to be a teacher and nurturing guardian of the poor and oppressed. In Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth, 1963) he affirmed the human rights of every individual and the duties that follow from our having rights: "Since men are social by nature they are meant to live with others and to work for one another's welfare". In 1967 Paul VI issued his hard-hitting Populorum Progressio (The Development of Peoples), calling attention to the way in which the poor were becoming poorer, and stating quite unequivocally the Church's refusal to endorse capitalism (and indeed socialism): "It is unfortunate that on these new conditions of society a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation." Powerful stuff, and in Octogesima Adveniens (A Call to Action, 1971), Paul VI reminded us that we are ALL responsible: "It is too easy to throw back on others the responsibility for injustice, if at the same time one does not realize how each one shares in it personally, and how personal conversion is needed first." John Paul II came back again and again to this question of the relationship between economic activity, social justice and the rights and responsibilities of the individual. In Laborem Exercens (On Human Work, 1981), he encouraged Christians everywhere to become involved in the transformation of society and to avoid simplistic solutions: "The church's constant teaching on the right to private property and ownership of the means of production differs radically from the collectivism proclaimed by Marxism, but also from the capitalism practiced by liberalism and the political systems inspired by it". In Solicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern, 1987) John Paul II reflected on the "structures of sin" to be found in society. His comment "One may sin by greed and the desire for power, but one may also sin in these matters through fear, indecision, and cowardice!" makes especially uncomfortable reading today. I could go on, but I don't mean to lecture. My point is that denouncing any particular group is often a facile way of apportioning blame so that we ourselves don't feel the need to examine our own conduct. There is no doubt that some people have, by their actions, imperilled others. The pursuit of profit without thought for morality or truth is something the Church has never condoned. But we mustn't forget that much of the fragility of the global economy is the result of our all wanting more. The growth of unreal expectations about what we are entitled to, and the funding of those expectations by debt is something very few of us in the west can say we have had no part in. St Benedict had a highly developed sense of the common good and the renunciations necessary to sustain it. Perhaps monasticism has more to say to our present crisis than might at first appear. If the papal documents mentioned above are too complex and lengthy for the time you have available, you may find dipping into the Rule of St Benedict will challenge you constructively enough.