In his speech at the launch of the book 'Reluctant Prophet: Tributes to Albert Nolan OP', Fr Peter-John Pearson reflected that, how even in death, Nolan had again provided words to disrupt complacency and to offer sustenance to those continuing the "venerable tradition of raising the lowly and casting the mighty from their thrones and righting human wrong". Pearson, who is director of the Parliamentary Liaison Office of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, delivered this address at St Michael's Church, Rondebosch, on July 8.

I marvelled, as I read these chapters, at just how we were drawn almost effortlessly into the utterly remarkable life of Albert; how the words gave us the shapes, shadows and the substance of his life; gave us a glimpse into the rich legacy of his ideas, into the courage of his activism, the depth of his pastoral commitments and the complexity and contradictions of the theological burden that he carried in his heart. I dared to think, as I read the book, that maybe for the second time in Dominican history the Order has birthed another Albert the Great.

But I marvelled even more at the way this book, the testimony of these words, also handed us an incendiary torch; how even in death Albert gave us words, gave us a book that would disturb us, disrupt our complacency and allow us to continue that venerable tradition of raising the lowly and casting the mighty from their thrones and righting human wrong. Albert understood well the disruptive power of words. I thought often, as I read this work, of Wole Soyinka's insight, I think from his 1986 Nobel speech, that 'books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to supress the truth.'

As I read and was further enthralled, I moved further and further from the task I was given for these few minutes, and I found myself not so much reflecting on what was new about Albert for me but about what I was learning anew about Albert's legacy.

My one lesson, as I read, was that Albert's legacy of the need for what Lenin called the 'permanent revolution', and what the Church has called 'semper reformanda', is indispensable for our very conflicted, contested times as we retreat deeper and deeper into political depravity and delinquency, the theft of land and livelihoods, and the existence of cultures of cruel exclusion.

Bertolt Brecht captures it magnificently: 'There are those who struggle for a day, and they are good. There are those who struggle for a year, and they are better. There are people who struggle for many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: these are the indispensable ones.'

A close reading of our text leaves me with the indelible impression that the challenge of life-long struggle, of solidarity, of the occupancy of the barricades, is for our times. Following Brecht, the most basic of human vocations is to be on the barricades, it's to be in the places of contestation, it's to be in the places of struggle, it's to be in the places of burgeoning hope, it's to be in the places of resistance and resilience, and in places where we say loudly: No, not in my name!

From the pages, Albert bids us not be afraid of lifelong struggle, not to be afraid of using words to disrupt what is wrong, what does not favour justice. It is the only chance we have of making a difference.

James Lowell in the midst of the NYC race riots and as a protest against the American-Mexican war penned that hymn about the decisiveness of taking sides, opting for the poor or in Pope Francis' words being a church of the poor for the poor. James Lowell wrote at that time, being the protester that he was, the intellectual giant that he was, the person of deep faith that he was, he wrote (and just excuse the gender-exclusive language):

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah,

Offering each the bloom or blight,

A...