The Oxford Movement and much of the Catholic Revival in Europe after the hecatomb of the French Revolution was due to a great extent to the emerging Romanticism of the early nineteenth century. We cannot repeat now what emerged, lived and died in the nineteenth century. We can no more recreate a bygone era than to travel in time. However, it is possible to learn from history, recover the enduring human values and sensitivities, and bring light to our present and future.

A part of my own motivation in this aspiration is not being willing to become resigned to see the soul of our world disappear into a faceless and soul-less dystopia of machines, technology and bureaucracy. In many of my reflections, I have been influenced by the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev in his aspirations to a new Middle Age beyond the nightmare of Communism, Nazism and Fascism which dominated the years when he produced most of his works.

The movement that is now needed, and which is timidly expressed here and there, is not so much a style of art or architecture, but a spirit that finds understanding of itself in the inspiration of the nineteenth-century mediaevalists and Pre-Raphaelites. That movement reacted against classicism and post-Renaissance art and sought to rediscover northern traditions. This is the soul of Normandy, of England, the Germanic and Nordic countries – and quintessentially the patrimony of Anglicanism and Gallicanism. Like many others of our age, we are tired of the materialistic and mechanical world that sees only a quantifiable value in human persons who in the eyes of God are beyond price.

Mediaevalism is often seen as a form of anti-modern revolt. The Middle-Ages was seen by the Romantics as an age of faith against industrialisation and materialism. The Gothic revival took root everywhere in Europe in the nineteenth century. John Ruskin praised gothic architecture for “the magnificent science of its structure, and the sacredness of its expression”. We do not have the means to build gothic churches today, but we can learn to appreciate and understand the old ones, above all preserving them as living places of worship.

What is important is our soul and spiritual life. The new middle-age, as Berdyaev put it, is not a slavish and romanticised reproduction of a past era but the spiritual basis of a new and beautiful future. We first have to rediscover Christ and the Gospels, their hidden and spiritual meaning, and then the meaning of worship and liturgy, on which basis we can recover profound moral and cultural values

It is often said that the Middle-Ages were violent, cruel, rent by war and human suffering. That certainly was true, but I wonder if that was anything compared with the horror of my own century, especially during the two World Wars that killed, maimed and ruined millions. Does modern technology convey the same spiritual realities as the old images and symbols? I doubt it. Should we be blamed for being utopian? Is utopianism a sin? Perhaps, but dystopianism is certainly more repugnant and horrible to contemplate. What is wrong with dreaming and trying to draw to the perfect Idea, as Christ did?

I often wonder if our technology is no more than something passing, even if it is simply for the reason that it needs energy to power it. I write on a computer, and the electricity to power it comes from nuclear fission in some ominous concrete chamber. That reaction may produce electricity for a very long time, but it depends on the skill of its maintenance technicians and everything around it being in perfect order. If the reaction escapes its confinement, it will kill people. All energy sources are both friends and enemies to man. I often wonder if it would not be better for man to be without the machines that begin to enslave us. I am something of a Luddite to heart! Perhaps technology should continue, but under the dominance of spirituality, inspiration, art, beauty, truth and ideals. Is that possible? I don’t know, but we should at least try.

I have always been attracted by the ideas expressed by men like Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, Distributism in particular and the ethos of the craft guilds, but there is no room for them in modern politics, social theory and capitalist economics. Even since the nineteenth century, the world population has increased many times, and the gap between rich and poor only becomes wider and wider. We of the twentieth century have seen the abyss of world war and monstrosities like Nazism and Soviet Communism, and no social engineering experiment brought any happiness or holiness into the world.

I have not heard about any lasting Distributist community attempts, and attempts at this nowadays seem to be associated with questionable right-wing political movements. I would never want to be associated with such things as an aspiration to impose Christian culture by force and coercion. I believe in the freedom of the conscience and absolutely abhor any tendency towards totalitarianism. The nineteenth century mediaevalists fostered the notions of brotherhood and solidarity between men. Some of these ideas are coming back in modern residential planning, but such projects rarely contain shops, workshops, churches and schools – just houses with the necessity of using motorised transport to get to more mechanised and industrial facilities for the masses. We need faith, stability and creativity.

We seem to be at a similar turning point as when the Oxford Movement and the Tractarians began to bring beauty and colour, firstly through theological research and literature, and then through liturgical revival. Attempts at cultural relevance in the liturgy are of passing and questionable value. Our post-modern youth seeks something different and above all authentic. I feel the same way and have always been attracted by mediaeval churches, rites and ceremonies. We need a sense of awe, wonder and mystery.

We do not aspire to return to the Middle-Ages in their inequality, warfare, brutality, disease and cruelty, but to a Romantic notion of that era in terms of its achievements and beauty. Is it possible to have the trappings without sickness, the coldness and darkness of winter, insecurity, the cheapness of human life, sombre melancholy and sadness? Conventional wisdom would say no. Our life is still bedevilled by human sin and natural catastrophes, so we need something to bring solace and meaning in our suffering. Christianity should not represent more asceticism to add to what we already have to endure, but beauty and love. We struggle as the Romantics struggled - with the same issues and hopes. There is still the same balance to find between security and freedom, love and work, beauty and material needs.

Let us seek God and beauty, the types and shadows of this world that reflect the universal reality of the World of Ideas. Look ever higher and further. O my brave Soul! O farther, farther sail! O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? O farther, farther, farther sail!