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The Human Soul was the first of a trilogy of major works. The next was The Personality of Christ, published shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Abbot Vonier cherished what I might call a Pauline love and devotion for the Person of Christ. Those who knew him best felt that it was only a question of time before he would apply himself to a study of the supreme Personality of the world’s history.

The Personality of Christ is not a "Life" of Christ. The Abbot’s aim is not even directly devotional, in the narrow sense of that word. His book is a dogmatic treatise on the mystery of God made Man and on its tremendous consequences for mankind; but it is eminently "edifying" in the original meaning of that lovely word coined by Saint Paul for describing the purpose and significance of every spiritual activity in the Church (cf. 1 Corinthians 14). The Abbot writes: "Any man may invent an ascetical system and find others to submit to it, but no man can make of his own person the irrevocable voice of conscience, the all-satisfying food of heart and mind; Our Lord is the only Person who ever could." All this is profoundly true, for Christ is the very embodiment of truth, the only way that leads to the Father, the supreme manifestation in time of the invisible God who inhabits eternity.

The Jubilee year of 1925 saw the publication of what was, undoubtedly, the Abbot’s most weighty contribution to theological thought. Very modestly he gave it the title of A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist. If he had called it The Key, he would not have been presumptuous. His book is a golden key that unlocks the door to a whole world of supernatural marvels, and to the forging of it the Abbot gave the best that was in him.

Most of our ancient cathedrals and abbey churches, whether still in use or only picturesque ruins, have one feature in common—the sanctuary is surrounded by a circle of chapels, one of which, and as a rule the largest and most beautiful of them all, is the Lady Chapel. Abbot Anscar’s literary work is like a majestic temple reared to the glory of Christ our Lord. It was in the nature of things that to this noble edifice he would add, as it were, a Lady Chapel. This he did when he wrote a little masterpiece of less than fifty pages.

The Divine Motherhood was written in fulfilment of a vow made at a moment when, during the Great War, the very existence of the community was in jeopardy. So the little book is a thank-offering to the Guardian and Patroness of this her very own house. The pages of the little book glow with a controlled emotional warmth far more effective, it seems to me, than the most perfervid declamations that one may hear during the May devotions.

During Abbot Vonier’s lifetime every new book of his never failed to meet with a warm and even enthusiastic welcome from a very considerable body of readers.

The Abbot himself derived intense satisfaction from his literary success, not, indeed, because he courted popularity, but because he realized that by means of his books he could exercise a most beneficent influence upon the spiritual and intellectual life of thousands whose souls he would not be able to contact by any other means.  His aim in taking up his pen was a purely apostolic one, that of opening the eyes of educated men and women to the splendors of the Catholic faith.

This chapter may suitably conclude with a quotation from an unusually gifted lady.

"In the summer of 1913 I was groping my way from unbelief towards the Catholic Church. I had realized that for me it was that or nothing; but the difficulties were great. Then I met with Abbot Vonier’s newly published book The Human Soul. This cleared the ground for me, explaining almost every thing that had seemed puzzling or unreasonable. It now appeared to me most probable that Christianity, and so Catholicism, was truth. But I could not stake my life on a high degree of probability. I could only wait, and pray as best I could for light.

"Then, on 22nd January 1914, I went to hear Abbot Vonier preach at Warwick Street. The impression of power was something the like of which I have never experienced before or since: the black-robed monk, with pale face and dark, flashing eyes, standing on the altar steps. Almost every sentence might have been expanded into a sermon, and one was in danger of trying to follow a train of thought suggested by what he was saying at one moment and so missing what came next.

"At the end I felt that something was breaking down—or opening out—within me; and when the monstrance was placed on the throne, I knew, with that incommunicable, almost imperceptible touch in the depths of one’s being which is Faith. My credo was said, and I understood that if I ever went back on that, no matter what difficulties there might be, it would be the sin of infidelity."

During his lifetime, Abbot Vonier was a burning and shining light for Christ.  Although his earthly life has now passed, that light lives on in his writing.

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