Twenty-Nine Catholics, most of them lay and many belonging to what is called the modern generation, spent the second week-end of September at a Dance and Phillipson mansion—elegant and comfortable, says De Quincey, who stayed there, but not splendid—square and Ionic, set in a park of rough Northamptonshire turf and beech clumps and encircled by woods of oak. Their purpose, more easily recognized than described, was to form contacts; to discuss the widening of Catholicism in themselves and their society, of Catholicism considered more as a habit of life than a system of revealed principles and organized procedure; and to prepare, if possible, for some form of group action.

The first general meeting started with the statement of two principles: first, the continuity between supernatural religion and the rest of life; secondly, the Catholic significance of every human action. ‘Spirituality’ is not a special occupation, remote from other human interests: the sacred and the profane imply a distinction but not an antithesis: there is such a thing as religious worldliness, which is not a comfortable but a difficult ideal: Catholicism is not a spasmodic treble, or for that matter a treble at all, but covers the whole human movement of living—all these are merely chapter headings, indications of an emphasis, not scientifically stated conclusions.

But while Catholicism is as wide as life, organized Catholicism denotes a special kind of life. From this life springs a special kind of activity called Catholic Action, in which all who attended the Laxton week-end take part in varying degrees.