{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16309/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16309","id":"gutenberg_16309","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16309","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Catholic Church -- Sermons","Sermons, English -- 20th century"],"text":"Produced by Geoff Horton and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM\n\nBY ROBERT HUGH BENSON\n\n\n_These sermons (which the following pages contain in a much abbreviated\nform) were delivered, partly in England in various places and at various\ntimes, partly in New York in the Lent of 1912, and finally, as a\ncomplete course, in the church of S. Silvestro-in-Capite, in Rome, in\nthe Lent of 1913. Some of the ideas presented in this book have already\nbeen set out in a former volume entitled \"Christ in the Church\" and a\nfew in the meditations upon the Seven Words, in another volume, but in\naltogether other connexions. The author thought it better, therefore, to\nrisk repetition rather than incoherency in the present set of\nconsiderations. It is hoped that the repetitions are comparatively few.\n\nItalics have been used for all quotations, whether verbal or\nsubstantial, from Holy Scripture and other literature_.\n\nROBERT HUGH BENSON\nHARE STREET HOUSE, BUNTINGFORD\nEASTER, 1913\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n  (i) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN\n  (ii) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN\n\nI PEACE AND WAR\n\nII WEALTH AND POVERTY\n\nIII SANCTITY AND SIN\n\nIV JOY AND SORROW\n\nV LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF MAN\n\nVI FAITH AND REASON\n\nVII AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY\n\nVIII CORPORATENESS AND INDIVIDUALISM\n\nIX MEEKNESS AND VIOLENCE\n\nX THE SEVEN WORDS\n\nXI LIFE AND DEATH\n\n\n\n\nPARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n(i) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN\n\n\n_I and My Father are one_.--JOHN X. 30.\n\n_My Father is greater than I_.--JOHN XIV. 20.\n\n\nThe mysteries of the Church, a materialistic scientist once announced to\nan astonished world, are child's play compared with the mysteries of\nnature.[1] He was completely wrong, of course, yet there was every\nexcuse for his mistake. For, as he himself tells us in effect, he found\neverywhere in that created nature which he knew so well, anomaly piled\non anomaly and paradox on paradox, and he knew no more of theology than\nits simpler and more explicit statements.\n\n[Footnote 1: Professor Huxley.]\n\nWe can be certain therefore--we who understand that the mysteries of\nnature are, after all, within the limited circle of created life, while\nthe mysteries of grace run up into the supreme Mystery of the eternal\nand uncreated Life of God--we can be certain that, if nature is\nmysterious and paradoxical, grace will be incalculably more mysterious.\nFor every paradox in the world of matter, in whose environment our\nbodies are confined, we shall find a hundred in that atmosphere of\nspirit in which our spirits breathe and move--those spirits of ours\nwhich, themselves, paradoxically enough, are forced to energize under\nmaterial limitations.\n\nWe need look no further, then, to find these mysteries than to that tiny\nmirror of the Supernatural which we call our self, to that little thread\nof experience which we name the \"spiritual life.\" How is it, for\nexample, that while in one mood our religion is the lamp of our shadowy\nexistence, in another it is the single dark spot upon a world of\npleasure--in one mood the single thing that makes life worth living at\nall, and in another the one obstacle to our contentment? What are those\nsorrowful and joyful mysteries of human life, mutually contradictory yet\ntogether resultant (as in the Rosary itself) in others that are\nglorious? Turn to that master passion that underlies these\nmysteries--the passion that is called love--and see if there be anything\nmore inexplicable than such an explanation. What is this passion, then,\nthat turns joy to sorrow and sorrow to joy--this motive that drives a\nman to lose his life that he may save it, that turns bitter to sweet and\nmakes the cross but a light yoke after all, that causes him to find his\ncentre outside his own circle, and to please himself best by depriving\nhimself of pleasure? What is that power that so often fills us with\ndelights before we have begun to labour, and rewards our labour with\nthe darkness of dereliction?\n\nI. If our interior life, then, is full of paradox and apparent\ncontradiction--and there is no soul that has made any progress that does\nnot find it so--we should naturally expect that the Divine Life of Jesus\nChrist on earth, which is the central Objective Light of the World\nreflected in ourselves, should be full of yet more amazing anomalies.\nLet us examine the records of that Life and see if it be not so. And let\nus for that purpose begin by imagining such an examination to be made by\nan inquirer who has never received the Christian tradition.\n\n(i) He begins to read, of course, with the assumption that this Life is\nas others and this Man as other men; and as he reads he finds a hundred\ncorroborations of the theory. Here is one, born of a woman, hungry and\nthirsty by the wayside, increasing in wisdom; one who works in a\ncarpenter's shop; rejoices and sorrows; one who has friends and enemies;\nwho is forsaken by the one and insulted by the other--who passes, in\nfact, through all those experiences of human life to which mankind is\nsubject--one who dies like other men and is laid in a grave.\n\nEven the very marvels of that Life he seeks to explain by the marvellous\nhumanity of its hero. He can imagine, as one such inquirer has said, how\nthe magic of His presence was so great--the magic of His simple yet\nperfect humanity--that the blind opened their eyes to see the beauty of\nHis face and the deaf their ears to hear Him.\n\nYet, as he reads further, he begins to meet his problems. If this Man\nwere man only, however perfect and sublime, how is it that His sanctity\nappears to run by other lines than those of other saints? Other perfect\nmen as they approached perfection were most conscious of imperfection;\nother saints as they were nearer God lamented their distance from Him;\nother teachers of the spiritual life pointed always away from themselves\nand their shortcomings to that Eternal Law to which they too aspired.\nYet with this Man all seems reversed. He, as He stood before the world,\ncalled on men to imitate Him; not, as other leaders have done, to avoid\nHis sins: this Man, so far from pointing forward and up, pointed to\nHimself as the Way to the Father; so far from adoring a Truth to which\nHe strove, named Himself its very incarnation; so far from describing a\nLife to which He too one day hoped to rise, bade His hearers look on\nHimself Who was their Life; so far from deploring to His friends the\nsins under which He laboured, challenged His enemies to find within Him\nany sin at all. There is an extraordinary Self-consciousness in Him that\nhas in it nothing of \"self\" as usually understood.\n\nThen it may be, at last, that our inquirer approaches the Gospel with a\nnew assumption. He has been wrong, he thinks, in his interpretation that\nsuch a Life as this was human at all. \"_Never man spake like this\nman_.\" He echoes from the Gospel, \"_What manner of man is this that even\nthe winds and the sea obey Him_? How, after all,\" he asks himself,\n\"could a man be born without a human father, how rise again from the\ndead upon the third day?\" Or, \"How even could such marvels be related at\nall of one who was no more than other men?\"\n\nSo once more he begins. Here, he tells himself, is the old fairy story\ncome true; here is a God come down to dwell among men; here is the\nsolution of all his problems. And once more he finds himself bewildered.\nFor how can God be weary by the wayside, labour in a shop, and die upon\na cross? How can the Eternal Word be silent for thirty years? How can\nthe Infinite lie in a manger? How can the Source of Life be subject to\ndeath?\n\nHe turns in despair, flinging himself from theory to theory--turns to\nthe words of Christ Himself, and the perplexity deepens with every\nutterance. If Christ be man, how can He say, _My Father and I are one_?\nIf Christ be God, how can He proclaim that _His Father is greater than\nHe_? If Christ be Man, how can He say, _Before Abraham was, I am_? If\nChrist be God, how can He name Himself _the Son of Man_.\n\n(ii) Turn to the spiritual teaching of Jesus Christ, and once more\nproblem follows problem, and paradox, paradox.\n\nHere is He Who came to soothe men's sorrows and to give rest to the\nweary, He Who offers a sweet yoke and a light burden, telling them that\nno man can be His disciple who will not take up the heaviest of all\nburdens and follow Him uphill. Here is one, the Physician of souls and\nbodies, Who _went about doing good_, Who set the example of activity in\nGod's service, pronouncing the silent passivity of Mary as the better\npart that shall not be taken away from her. Here at one moment He turns\nwith the light of battle in His eyes, bidding His friends who have not\nswords to _sell their cloaks and buy them_; and at another bids those\nswords to be sheathed, since _His Kingdom is not of this world_. Here is\nthe Peacemaker, at one time pronouncing His benediction on those who\nmake peace, and at another crying that He _came to bring not peace but a\nsword_. Here is He Who names as _blessed those that mourn_ bidding His\ndisciples to _rejoice and be exceeding glad_. Was there ever such a\nParadox, such perplexity, and such problems? In His Person and His\nteaching alike there seems no rest and no solution--_What think ye of\nChrist? Whose Son is He_?\n\nII. (i) The Catholic teaching alone, of course, offers a key to these\nquestions; yet it is a key that is itself, like all keys, as complicated\nas the wards which it alone can unlock. Heretic after heretic has sought\nfor simplification, and heretic after heretic has therefore come to\nconfusion. Christ is God, cried the Docetic; therefore cut out from the\nGospels all that speaks of the reality of His Manhood! God cannot bleed\nand suffer and die; God cannot weary; God cannot feel the sorrows of\nman. Christ is Man, cries the modern critic; therefore tear out from the\nGospels His Virgin Birth and His Resurrection! For none but a Catholic\ncan receive the Gospels as they were written; none but a man who\nbelieves that Christ is both God and Man, who is content to believe that\nand to bow before the Paradox of paradoxes that we call the Incarnation,\nto accept the blinding mystery that Infinite and Finite Natures were\nunited in one Person, that the Eternal expresses Himself in Time, and\nthat the Uncreated Creator united to Himself Creation--none but a\nCatholic, in a word, can meet, without exception, the mysterious\nphenomena of Christ's Life.\n\n(ii) Turn now again to the mysteries of our own limited life and, as in\na far-off phantom parallel, we begin to understand.\n\nFor we too, in our measure, have a double nature. _As God and Man make\none Christ, so soul and body make one man_: and, as the two natures of\nChrist--as His Perfect Godhead united to His Perfect Manhood--lie at the\nheart of the problems which His Life presents, so too our affinities\nwith the clay from which our bodies came, and with the Father of Spirits\nWho inbreathed into us living souls, explain the contradictions of our\nown experience.\n\nIf we were but irrational beasts, we could be as happy as the beasts;\nif we were but discarnate spirits that look on God, the joy of the\nangels would be ours. Yet if we assume either of these two truths as if\nit were the only truth, we come certainly to confusion. If we live as\nthe beasts, we cannot sink to their contentment, for our immortal part\nwill not let us be; if we neglect or dispute the rightful claims of the\nbody, that very outraged body drags our immortal spirit down. The\nacceptance of the two natures of Christ alone solves the problems of the\nGospel; the acceptance of the two parts of our own nature alone enables\nus to live as God intends. Our spiritual and physical moods, then, rise\nand fall as the one side or the other gains the upper hand: now our\nreligion is a burden to the flesh, now it is the exercise in which our\nsoul delights; now it is the one thing that makes life worth living, now\nthe one thing that checks our enjoyment of life. These moods alternate,\ninevitably and irresistibly, according as we allow the balance of our\nparts to be disturbed and set swaying. And so, ultimately, there is\nreserved for us the joy neither of beasts nor of angels, but the joy of\nhumanity. We are higher than the one, we are lower than the other, that\nwe may be crowned by Him Who in that same Humanity sits on the Throne of\nGod.\n\nSo much, then, for our introduction. We have seen how the Paradox of the\nIncarnation alone is adequate to the phenomena recorded in the\nGospel--how that supreme paradox is the key to all the rest. We will\nproceed to see how it is also the key to other paradoxes of religion, to\nthe difficulties which the history of Catholicism presents. For the\nCatholic Church is the extension of Christ's Life on earth; the Catholic\nChurch, therefore, that strange mingling of mystery and common-sense,\nthat union of earth and heaven, of clay and fire, can alone be\nunderstood by him who accepts her as both Divine and Human, since she is\nnothing else but the mystical presentment, in human terms, of Him Who,\nthough the Infinite God and the Eternal Creator, was _found in the form\nof a servant_, of Him Who, _dwelling always in the Bosom of the Father_,\nfor our sakes _came down from heaven_.\n\n\n\n\n(ii) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN\n\n\n_Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona; because flesh and blood hath not\nrevealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.... Go behind me,\nsatan, for thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things\nthat are of men_.--MATT. XVI. 17, 23.\n\n\nWe have seen how the only reconciliation of the paradoxes of the Gospel\nlies in the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. It is only to him who\nbelieves that Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect Man that the\nGospel record is coherent and intelligible. The heretics--men who for\nthe most part either rejected or added to the inspired record--were\nthose who, on the one side, accepted Christ's Divinity and rejected the\nproofs of His Humanity, or accepted His Humanity and rejected the proofs\nof His Divinity. In the early ages, for the most part, these accepted\nHis Divinity and, rejecting His Humanity, invented childish miracles\nwhich they thought appropriate to a God dwelling on earth in a phantom\nmanhood; at the present day, rejecting His Divinity, they reject also\nthose miracles for which His Divinity alone is an adequate explanation.\n\nNow the Catholic Church is an extension of the Incarnation. She too\n(though, as we shall see, the parallel is not perfect) has her Divine\nand Human Nature, which alone can account for the paradoxes of her\nhistory; and these paradoxes are either predicted by Christ--asserted,\nthat is, as part of His spiritual teaching--or actually manifested in\nHis own life. (We may take them as symbolised, so to speak, in those\nwords of our Lord to St. Peter in which He first commends him as a man\ninspired by God and then, almost simultaneously, rebukes him as one who\ncan rise no further than an earthly ideal at the best.)\n\nI. (i) Just as we have already imagined a well-disposed inquirer\napproaching for the first time the problems of the Gospel, so let us now\nagain imagine such a man, in whom the dawn of faith has begun,\nencountering the record of Catholicism.\n\nAt first all seems to him Divine. He sees, for example, how singularly\nunique she is, how unlike to all other human societies. Other societies\ndepend for their very existence upon a congenial human environment; she\nflourishes in the most uncongenial. Other societies have their day and\npass down to dissolution and corruption; she alone knows no corruption.\nOther dynasties rise and fall; the dynasty of Peter the Fisherman\nremains unmoved. Other causes wax and wane with the worldly influence\nwhich they can command; she is usually most effective when her earthly\ninterest is at the lowest ebb.\n\nOr again, he falls in love with her Divine beauty and perceives even in\nher meanest acts a grace which he cannot understand. He notices with\nwonder how she takes human mortal things--a perishing pagan language, a\ndebased architecture, an infant science or philosophy--and infuses into\nthem her own immortality. She takes the superstitions of a country-side\nand, retaining their \"accidents,\" transubstantiates them into truth; the\ncustoms or rites of a pagan society, and makes them the symbols of a\nliving worship. And into all she infuses a spirit that is all her own--a\nspirit of delicate grace and beauty of which she alone has the secret.\n\nIt is her Divinity, then, that he sees, and rightly. But, wrongly, he\ndraws certain one-sided conclusions. If she is so perfect, he argues (at\nleast subconsciously), she can be nothing else than perfect; if she is\nso Divine she can be in no sense human. Her pontiffs must all be saints,\nher priests shining lights, her people stars in her firmament. If she is\nDivine, her policy must be unerring, her acts all gracious, her lightest\nmovements inspired. There must be no brutality anywhere, no\nself-seeking, no ambition, no instability. How should there be, since\nshe is Divine?\n\nSuch are his first instincts. And then, little by little, his\ndisillusionment begins.\n\nFor, as he studies her record more deeply, he begins to encounter\nevidences of her Humanity. He reads history, and he discovers here and\nthere a pontiff who but little in his moral character resembles Him\nWhose Vicar he is. He meets an apostate priest; he hears of some\nsavagery committed in Christ's name; he talks with a convert who has\nreturned complacently to the City of Confusion; there is gleefully\nrelated to him the history of a family who has kept the faith all\nthrough the period of persecution and lost it in the era of toleration.\nAnd he is shaken and dismayed. \"How can these be in a Society that is\nDivine? I had _trusted_ that it had been_ She _who should have redeemed\nIsrael;_ _and now--_!\"\n\n(ii) Another man approaches the record of Catholicism from the opposite\ndirection. To him she is a human society and nothing more; and he finds,\nindeed, a thousand corroborations of his theory. He views her amazing\nsuccess in the first ages of Christianity--the rapid propagation of her\ntenets and the growth of her influence--and sees behind these things\nnothing more than the fortunate circumstance of the existence of the\nRoman Empire. Or he notices the sudden and rapid rise of the power of\nthe Roman pontiff and explains this by the happy chance that moved the\ncentre of empire to the east and left in Rome an old prestige and an\nempty throne. He sees how the Church has profited by the divisions in\nEurope; how she has inherited the old Latin genius for law and order;\nand he finds in these things an explanation of her unity and of her\nclaim to rule princes and kings. She is to him just human, and no more.\nThere is not, at first sight, a phenomenon of her life for which he\ncannot find a human explanation. She is interesting, as a result of\ninnumerable complicated forces; she is venerable, as the oldest coherent\nsociety in Europe; she has the advantage of Italian diplomacy; she has\nbeen shrewd, unweary, and persevering. But she is no more.\n\nAnd then, as he goes deeper, he begins to encounter phenomena which do\nnot fall so easily under his compact little theories. If she is merely\nhuman, why do not the laws of all other human societies appear to affect\nher too? Why is it that she alone shows no incline towards dissolution\nand decay? Why has not she too split up into the component parts of\nwhich she is welded? How is it that she has preserved a unity of which\nall earthly unities are but shadows? Or he meets with the phenomena of\nher sanctity and begins to perceive that the difference between the\ncharacter she produces in her saints and the character of the noblest of\nthose who do not submit to her is one of kind and not merely of degree.\nIf she is merely mediaeval, how is it that she commands such allegiance\nas that which is paid to her in modern America? If she is merely\nEuropean, how is it that she alone can deal with the Oriental on his own\nterms? If she is merely the result of temporal circumstances, how is it\nthat her spiritual influence shows no sign of waning when the forces\nthat helped to build her are dispersed?\n\nHis theory too, then, becomes less confident. If she is Human, why is\nshe so evidently Divine? If she is Divine, whence comes her obvious\nHumanity? So years ago men asked, If Christ be God, how could He be\nweary by the wayside and die upon the Cross? So men ask now, If Christ\nbe Man, how could He cast out devils and rise from the dead?\n\nII. We come back, then, to the Catholic answer. Treat the Catholic\nChurch as Divine only and you will stumble over her scandals, her\nfailures, and her shortcomings. Treat her as Human only and you will be\nsilenced by her miracles, her sanctity, and her eternal resurrections.\n\n(i) Of course the Catholic Church is Human. She consists of fallible\nmen, and her Humanity is not even safeguarded as was that of Christ\nagainst the incursions of sin. Always, therefore, there have been\nscandals, and always will be. Popes may betray their trust, in all human\nmatters; priests their flocks; laymen their faith. No man is secure.\nAnd, again, since she is human it is perfectly true that she has\nprofited by human circumstances for the increase of her power.\nUndoubtedly it was the existence of the Roman Empire, with its roads,\nits rapid means of transit, and its organization, that made possible the\nswift propagation of the Gospel in the first centuries. Undoubtedly it\nwas the empty throne of Caesar and the prestige of Rome that developed\nthe world's acceptance of the authority of Peter's Chair. Undoubtedly\nit was the divisions of Europe that cemented the Church's unity and led\nmen to look to a Supreme Authority that might compose their differences.\nThere is scarcely an opening in human affairs into which she has not\nplunged; hardly an opportunity she has missed. Human affairs, human sins\nand weaknesses as well as human virtues, have all contributed to her\npower. So grows a tree, even in uncongenial soil. The rocks that impede\nthe roots later become their support; the rich soil, waiting for an\noccupant, has been drawn up into the life of the leaves; the very winds\nthat imperilled the young sapling have developed too its power of\nresistance. Yet these things do not make the tree.\n\n(ii) For her Humanity, though it is the body in which her Divinity\ndwells, does not create that Divinity. Certainly human circumstances\nhave developed her, yet what but Divine Providence ordered and developed\nthose human circumstances? What but that same power, which indwells in\nthe Church, dwelt without her too and caused her to take root at that\ntime and in that place which most favored her growth? Certainly she is\nHuman. It may well be that her rulers have contradicted one another in\nhuman matters--in science, in policy, and in discipline; but how is it,\nthen, that they have not contradicted one another in matters that are\nDivine? Granted that one Pope has reversed the policy of his\npredecessor, then what has saved him from reversing his theology also?\nCertainly there have been appalling scandals, outrageous sinners,\nblaspheming apostates--but what of her saints?\n\nAnd, above all, she gives proof of her Divinity by that very sign to\nwhich Christ Himself pointed as a proof of His own. Granted that she\n_dies daily_--that her cause fails in this century and in that country;\nthat her science is discredited in this generation and her active\nmorality in that and her ideals in a third--how comes it that she also\nrises daily from the dead; that her old symbols rise again from their\nruins; that her virtues are acclaimed by the children of the men who\nrenounced her; that her bells and her music sound again where once her\nchurches and houses were laid waste?\n\nHere, then, is the Catholic answer and it is this alone that makes sense\nof history, as it is Catholic doctrine which alone makes sense of the\nGospel record. The answer is identical in both cases alike, and it is\nthis--that the only explanation of the phenomena of the Gospels and of\nChurch history is that the Life which produces them is both Human and\nDivine.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nPEACE AND WAR\n\n\n_Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the\nchildren of God._--MATT. V. 9.\n\n_Do not think that I am come to send peace on earth; I\ncame not to send peace but the sword._--MATT. X. 34.\n\n\nWe have considered how the key to the Paradoxes of the Gospel and the\nkey to the Paradoxes of Catholicism is one and the same--that the Life\nthat produces them is at once Divine and Human. Let us go on to consider\nhow this resolves those of Catholicism, especially those charged against\nus by our adversaries.\n\nFor we live in a day when Catholicism is no longer considered by\nintelligent men to be too evidently absurd to be argued with. Definite\nreasons are given by those who stand outside our borders for the\nattitude they maintain; definite accusations are made which must either\nbe allowed or refuted.\n\nNow those who stand without the walls of the City of Peace know nothing,\nit is true, of the life that its citizens lead within, nothing of the\nharmony and consolation that Catholicism alone can give. Yet of certain\npoints, it may be, in the large outlines of that city against the sky,\nof the place it occupies in the world, of its wide effect upon human\nlife in general, it may very well be that these detached observers may\nknow more than the devout who dwell at peace within. Let us, then,\nconsider their reflections not necessarily as wholly false; it may be\nthat they have caught glimpses which we have missed and relations which\neither we take too much for granted or have failed altogether to see. It\nmay be that these accusations will turn out to be our credentials in\ndisguise.\n\nI. Every world-religion, we are told, worthy of the name has as its\nprincipal object and its chief claim to consideration its establishing\nor its fostering of peace among men. Supremely this was so in the first\ndays of Christianity. It was this that its great prophet predicted of\nits work when its Divine Founder should come on earth. Nature shall\nrecover its lost harmony and the dissensions of men shall cease when He,\nthe Prince of Peace, shall approach. The very beasts shall lie down\ntogether in amity, _the lion and the lamb_ and _the leopard and the\nkid_. Further, it was the Message of Peace that the angels proclaimed\nover His cradle in Bethlehem; it was the Gift of Peace which He Himself\npromised to His disciples; it was the _Peace of God which passeth\nknowledge_ to which the great Apostle commended his converts. This then,\nwe are told, is of the very essence of Christianity; this is the supreme\nbenediction on the peacemakers that _they shall be called the children\nof God_.\n\nYet, when we turn to Catholicism, we are bidden to see in it not a\ngatherer but a scatterer, not the daughter of peace but the mother of\ndisunion. Is there a single tormented country in Europe to-day, it is\nrhetorically demanded, that does not owe at least part of its misery to\nthe claims of Catholicism? What is it but Catholicism that lies at the\nheart of the divided allegiance of France, of the miseries of Portugal,\nand of the dissensions of Italy? Look back through history and you will\nfind the same tale everywhere. What was it that disturbed the politics\nof England so often from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, and tore\nher in two in the sixteenth, but the determined resistance of an\nadolescent nation to the tyranny of Rome? What lay behind the religious\nwars of Europe, behind the fires of Smithfield, the rack of Elizabeth,\nand the blood of St. Bartholomew's Day but this intolerant and\nintolerable religion which would come to no terms even with the most\nreasonable of its adversaries? It is impossible, of course, altogether\nto apportion blame, to say that in each several instance it was the\nCatholic that was the aggressor; but at least it is true to say that it\nwas Catholic principles that were the occasion and Catholic claims the\nunhappy cause of all this incalculable flood of human misery.\n\nHow singularly unlike, then, we are told, is this religion of\ndissension to the religion of Jesus Christ, of all these dogmatic and\ndisciplinary claims and assertions to the meekness of the Poor Man of\nNazareth! If true Christianity is anywhere in the world to-day it is not\namong such as these that it lies hid; rather it must be sought among the\ngentle humanitarians of our own and every country--men who strive for\npeace at all cost, men whose principal virtues are those of toleration\nand charity, men who, if any, have earned the beatitude of being _called\nthe children of God_.\n\nII. We turn to the Life of Jesus Christ from the Life of Catholicism,\nand at first indeed it does seem as if the contrast were justified. We\ncannot deny our critic's charges; every one of his historical assertions\nis true: it is indeed true that Catholicism has been the occasion of\nmore bloodshedding than has any of the ambitions or jealousies of man.\n\nAnd it is, further, true that Jesus Christ pronounced this benediction;\nthat He bade His followers seek after peace, and that He commended them,\nin the very climax of His exaltation, to the Peace which He alone could\nbestow.\n\nYet, when we look closer, the case is not so simple. For, first, what\nwas, as a matter of fact, the direct immediate effect of the Life and\nPersonality of Jesus Christ upon the society in which He lived but this\nvery dissension, this very bloodshedding and misery that are charged\nagainst His Church? It was precisely on this account that He was given\ninto the hands of Pilate. _He stirreth up the people. He makes Himself a\nKing._ He is a contentious demagogue, a disloyal citizen, a danger to\nthe Roman Peace.\n\nAnd indeed there seem to have been excuses for these charges. It was not\nthe language of a modern \"humanitarian,\" of the modern tolerant\n\"Christian,\" that fell from the Divine Lips of Jesus Christ. _Go and\ntell that fox_, He cries of the ruler of His people. _O you whited\nsepulchres full of dead men's bones! You vipers! You hypocrites!_ This\nis the language He uses to the representatives of Israel's religion. Is\nthis the kind of talk that we hear from modern leaders of religious\nthought? Would such language as this be tolerated for a moment from the\nhumanitarian Christian pulpits of to-day? Is it possible to imagine more\ninflammatory speech, more \"unchristian sentiments,\" as they would be\ncalled to-day, than those words uttered by none other but the Divine\nFounder of Christianity? What of that amazing scene when He threw the\nfurniture about the temple courts?\n\nAnd as for the effect of such words and methods, our Lord Himself is\nquite explicit. \"Make no mistake,\" He cries to the modern humanitarian\nwho claims alone to represent Him. \"Make no mistake. I am _not come to\nbring peace_ at any price; there are worse things than war and\nbloodshed. I am _come to bring not peace but a sword_. I am come to\n_divide families_, not to unite them; to rend kingdoms, not to knit\nthem up; I am come _to set mother against daughter and daughter against\nmother_; I am come not to establish universal toleration, but universal\nTruth.\"\n\nWhat, then, is the reconciliation of the Paradox? In what sense can it\nbe possible that the effect of the Personality of the Prince of Peace,\nand therefore the effect of His Church, in spite of their claims to be\nthe friends of peace, should be _not peace, but the sword?_\n\nIII. Now (1) the Catholic Church is a Human Society. She is constituted,\nthat is to say, of human beings; she depends, humanly speaking, upon\nhuman circumstances; she can be assaulted, weakened, and disarmed by\nhuman enemies. She dwells in the midst of human society, and it is with\nhuman society that she has to deal.\n\nNow if she were not human--if she were merely a Divine Society, a\nfar-off city in the heavens, a future distant ideal to which human\nsociety is approximating, there would be no conflict at all. She would\nnever meet in a face-to-face shock the passions and antagonisms of men;\nshe could suppress, now and again, her Counsels of Perfection, her calls\nto a higher life, if it were not that these are vital and present\nprinciples which she is bound to propagate among men.\n\nAnd again, if she were merely human, there would be no conflict. If she\nwere merely ascended from below, merely the result of the finest\nreligious thought of the world, the high-water mark of spiritual\nattainment, again she could compromise, could suppress, could be silent.\n\nBut she is both human and divine, and therefore her warfare is certain\nand inevitable. For she dwells in the midst of the kingdoms of this\nworld, and these are constituted, at any rate at the present day, on\nwholly human bases. Statesmen and kings, at the present day, do not\nfound their policies upon supernatural considerations; their object is\nto govern their subjects, to promote the peace and union of their\nsubjects, to make war, if need be, on behalf of the peace of their\nsubjects, wholly on natural grounds. Commerce, finance, agriculture,\neducation in the things of this world, science, art, exploration--human\nactivities generally--these, in their purely natural aspect, are the\nobjects of nearly all modern statesmanship. Our rulers are professedly,\nin their public capacity, neither for religion nor against it; religion\nis a private matter for the individual, and governments stand aside--or\nat any rate profess to do so.\n\nAnd it is in this kind of world, in this fashion of human society, that\nthe Catholic Church, in virtue of her humanity, is bound to dwell. She\ntoo is a kingdom, though not of this world, yet in it.\n\n(2) For she is also Divine. Her message contains, that is to say, a\nnumber of supernatural principles revealed to her by God; she is\nsupernaturally constituted; she rests on a supernatural basis; she is\nnot organized as if this world were all. On the contrary she puts the\nkingdom of God definitely first and the kingdoms of the world definitely\nsecond; the Peace of God first and the harmony of men second.\n\nTherefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with\nhuman natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage\nlaws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the\nmajority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these\nprinciples; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to\ncease to be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her\nDivine Message?\n\nAgain, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are\nsupernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more\nmodify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the\n_kingdom of this world_ if she would do so; it was proposed to her that\nshe actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and\nyield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If\nshe had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How\ninevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with\nhuman ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely\nimpossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well\nas human!\n\nTake courage then! We desire peace above all things--that is to say, the\nPeace of God, not _that peace which the world_, since it _can give_ it,\ncan also _take away_; not that peace which depends on the harmony of\nnature with nature, but of nature with grace.\n\nYet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the\nworld, or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases\nitself upon natural principles divorced from divine, so long to that\nworld, that country, that family, and that human heart will the\nsupernatural religion of Catholicism bring _not peace, but a sword_. And\nit will do so to the end, up to the final world-shattering catastrophe\nof Armageddon itself.\n\n\"I come,\" cries the Rider on the White Horse, \"to bring Peace indeed,\nbut a peace of which the world cannot even dream; a peace built upon the\neternal foundations of God Himself, not upon the shifting sands of human\nagreement. And until that Vision dawns there must be war; until God's\nPeace descends indeed and is accepted, till then _My Garments must be\nsplashed in blood_ and from My Mouth comes forth _not peace, but a\ntwo-edged sword_.\"\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nWEALTH AND POVERTY\n\n\n_Make to yourselves friends of the Mammon of iniquity_.\n\n_You cannot serve God and Mammon_.-LUKE XVI. 9, 13.\n\n\nWe have seen how the Church of the Prince of Peace must continually be\nthe centre of war. Let us go on to consider how, as a Human Society\ndwelling in this world, she must continually have her eyes fixed upon\nthe next, and how, as a Divine Society, she must be open to the charge\nof worldliness.\n\nI. (i) The charge is a very common one: \"Look at the extraordinary\nwealth and splendour that this Church of the Poor Man of Nazareth\nconstantly gathers around her and ask yourself how she can dare to claim\nto represent Him! Go through Holy Rome and see how the richest and most\nelaborate buildings bear over their gateways the heraldic emblems of\nChrist's Vicar! Go through any country which has not risen in disgust\nand cast off the sham that calls herself 'Christ's Church' and you will\nfind that no worldly official is so splendid as these heavenly delegates\nof Jesus Christ, no palaces more glorious than those in which they dwell\nwho pretend to preach Him who _had not where to lay His head!_\n\n\"Above all, turn from that simple poverty-stricken figure that the\nGospels present to us, to the man who claims to be His Vicegerent on\nearth. See him go, crowned three times over, on a throne borne on men's\nshoulders, with the silver trumpets shrilling before him and the ostrich\nfans coming on behind, and you will understand why the world cannot take\nthe Church seriously. Look at the court that is about him, all purple\nand scarlet, and set by that the little band of weather-beaten\nfishermen!\n\n\"No; if this Church were truly of Christ, she would imitate Him better.\nIt was His supreme mission to point to _things that are above;_ to lift\nmen's thoughts above dross and gold and jewels and worldly influence and\nhigh places and power; to point to _a Heavenly Jerusalem, not made with\nhands;_ to comfort the sorrowful with a vision of future peace, not to\ndabble with temporal matters; to speak of grace and heaven and things to\ncome, and _to let the dead bury their dead!_ The best we can do for her,\nthen, is to disembarrass her of her riches; to turn her temporal\npossessions to frankly temporal ends; to release her from the slavery of\nher own ambition into the _liberty of the poor and the children of\nGod!\"_\n\n(ii) In a word, then, the Church is too worldly to be the Church of\nChrist! _You cannot serve God and Mammon_. Yet in another mood our\ncritic will tell us that we are too otherworldly to be the Church of\nChrist. \"The chief charge I have against Catholicism,\" says such a man,\n\"is that the Church is too unpractical. If she were truly the Church of\nJesus Christ, she would surely imitate Him better in that which, after\nall, was the mark of His highest Divinity--namely in His Humanity\ntowards men. Christ did not come into the world to preach metaphysics\nand talk forever of a heaven that is to come; He came rather to attend\nto men's simplest needs, _to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked_, to\nreform society on better lines. It was not by His dogma that He won\nmen's hearts; it was by His simple, natural sympathy with their common\nneeds. He came, in a word, to make the best of this world, to use the\nelements that lay ready to His hand, to sanctify all the plain things of\nearth with which He came in contact.\n\n\"These otherworldly Catholics, then, are too much apart from common life\nand common needs. Their dogmas and their aspirations and their\nmetaphysics are useless to a world which wants bread. Let them act more\nand dream less! Let them show, for example, by the prosperity of\nCatholic countries that Catholicism is practical and not a vision. Let\nthem preach less and philanthropize more. Let them show that they have\nthe key to this world's progress, and perhaps we will listen more\npatiently to their claim to hold the key to the world that is to come!\"\n\nBut, surely, this is a little hard upon Catholics! When we make\nourselves at home in this world, we are informed that Jesus Christ _had\nnot where to lay His Head_. When we preach the world that is to come,\nwe are reminded that Jesus Christ after all came down from that world\ninto this to make it better. When we build a comfortable church, we are\ntold that we are too luxurious. When we build an uncomfortable one we\nare asked how we expect to do any good unless we are practical.\n\nII. Now, of course, both these charges were also objected against our\nBlessed Lord. For He too had His double activities. It is true that\nthere were times when He gave men earthly bread; it is also true that He\noffered them heavenly bread. There were times when He cared for men's\nbodies; there were other times when He bade them sacrifice all that\nmakes bodily life worth living; times when He sat at meat in the house\nof a rich man, and times when He starved, voluntarily, in the desert.\n\nAnd the world found Him wrong whichever He did. He was too worldly when\nHe healed men on the Sabbath; for is not the Law of God of more value\nthan a man's bodily ease? Why can He not wait till to-morrow? He was too\nworldly when He allowed His disciples to rub corn in their hands; for\ndoes not the Law of God forbid a man to make bread on the Sabbath? He\nwas too worldly, too unpractical, too sense-loving when He permitted the\nprecious ointment to be spilled on His feet; _for might not this\nointment have been sold for much and given to the poor?_ Is not\nspirituality enough, and the incense of adoration?\n\nAnd He was too otherworldly when He preached the Sermon on the Mount.\nWhat is the use of saying, _Blessed are the Meek_, when the whole world\nknows that \"Blessed are the Self-Assertive\"? He was too otherworldly\nwhen He spoke of Heavenly Bread. What is the use of speaking of Heavenly\nBread when it is earthly food that men need first of all? He was too\notherworldly when He remained in the country on the feast day. _If He be\nthe Christ_, let Him be practical and say so!\n\nIt was, in fact, on these very two charges that He was arraigned for\ndeath. He was too worldly for Pilate, in that He was Son of Man and\ntherefore a rival to Caesar; and too otherworldly for Caiphas, since _He\nmade Himself Son of God_ and therefore a rival to Jehovah.\n\nIII. The solution, then, of this Catholic Paradox is very simple. (i)\nFirst, the Church is a Heavenly Society come down from above--heavenly\nin her origin and her birth. She is the _kingdom of God_, first and\nforemost, and exists for His glory solely and entirely. She seeks, then,\nfirst the extension of His kingdom; and compared with this, nothing is\nof any value in her eyes. Never, then, must she sacrifice God to Mammon;\nnever hesitate for one instant if the choice lies between them. For she\nconsiders that eternity is greater than time and the soul of man of more\nvalue than his body. The sacraments therefore, in her eyes, come before\nan adequate tram-service; and that a man's soul should be in grace is,\nto her, of more importance than that his body should be in health--if\nthe choice is between them. She prefers, therefore, the priest to the\ndoctor, if there is not time for both, and Holy Communion to a good\nbreakfast.\n\nTherefore, of course, she appears too otherworldly to the stockbroker\nand the provincial mayor, since she actually places the things of God\nbefore the things of man and \"seeks first His Kingdom.\"\n\n(ii) \"And all these things shall be added\" to her. For she is Human\nalso, in that she dwells in this world where God has placed her, and\nuses therefore the things with which He has surrounded her. To say that\nshe is supernatural is not to deny her humanity any more than to assert\nthat man has an immortal soul is to exclude the truth that he also has a\nbody. It is this Body of hers, then--this humanity of hers which\nenshrines her Divinity--that claims and uses earthly things; it is this\nBody that _dwells in houses made with hands_ and that claims too, in\nhonour to herself and her Bridegroom, that, so long as her spirituality\nis not tarnished, these houses shall be as splendid as art can make\nthem. For she is not a Puritan nor a Manichee; she does not say that any\nsingle thing which God has made can conceivably be of itself evil,\nhowever grievously it may have been abused; on the contrary, she has His\nown authority for saying that _all is very good_.\n\nShe uses, then, every earthly beauty that the world will yield to her,\nto honour her own Majesty. It may be right to set diamonds round the\nneck of a woman, but it is certainly right to set them round the Chalice\nof the Blood of God. If an earthly king wears vestments of cloth of\ngold, must not a heavenly King yet more wear them? If music is used by\nthe world to destroy men's souls, may not she use it to save their\nsouls? If a marble palace is fit for the President of the French\nRepublic, by what right do men withhold it from the King of kings?\n\nBut the world does withhold its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she\ncan serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and\ncringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers\nhonoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and\nworship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does\nnot _serve God and Mammon_, she yet _makes to herself friends of the\nMammon of iniquity_. Though she does not and never can serve God and\nMammon, she will and can, when the world permits it, make Mammon serve\nher. For the Church is the Majesty of God dwelling on earth. She is\nthere, in herself, utterly independent of her reception. If it is _her\nown_ to whom _she comes, and her own do not receive her_, they are none\nthe less hers by every right. For, though she will use every earthly\nthing to her honour, though she considers no ointment wasted, however\nprecious, that is spilled by love over her feet, yet her essential glory\ndoes not lie in these things. She is _all glorious within_, whether or\nnot her _vesture is of gold_, for she is a _King's Daughter_. She is,\nessentially, as glorious in the Catacombs as in the Roman basilicas; as\nlovely in the barefooted friar as in the robed and sceptred Vicar of\nChrist; as majestic in Christ naked on the Cross as in Christ ascended\nand enthroned in heaven.\n\nYet, since she is His Majesty on earth, she has a right to all that\nearth can give. All _the beasts of the field are hers, and the cattle on\na thousand hills_, all the stars of heaven and the jewels of earth; all\nthe things in the world are hers by Divine right.\n\n_All things are hers, for she is Christ's._ Yet, nevertheless, _she will\nsuffer the loss of all things_ sooner than lose Him.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nSANCTITY AND SIN\n\n\n_Holy, Holy, Holy!_--IS. VI. 3.\n\nChrist Jesus came into this world to save sinners_. I TIM. I. 15.\n\n\nA very different pair of charges--and far more vital--than those more or\nless economic accusations of worldliness and otherworldliness which we\nhave just considered, concern the standards of goodness preached by the\nChurch and her own alleged incapacity to live up to them. These may be\nbriefly summed up by saying that one-half the world considers the Church\ntoo holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may\nname these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.\n\nI. It is the Pagan who charges her with excessive Holiness.\n\n\"You Catholics,\" he tells us, \"are far too hard on sin and not nearly\nindulgent enough towards poor human nature. Let me take as an instance\nthe sins of the flesh. Now here is a set of desires implanted by God or\nNature (as you choose to name the Power behind life) for wise and\nindeed essential purposes. These desires are probably the very fiercest\nknown to man and certainly the most alluring; and human nature is, as we\nknow, an extraordinarily inconsistent and vacillating thing. Now I am\naware that the abuse of these passions leads to disaster and that Nature\nhas her inexorable laws and penalties; but you Catholics add a new\nhorror to life by an absurd and irrational insistence on the offence\nthat this abuse causes before God. For not only do you fiercely denounce\nthe \"acts of sin,\" as you name them, but you presume to go deeper still\nto the very desire itself, as it would seem. You are unpractical and\ncruel enough to say that the very thought of sin deliberately\nentertained can cut off the soul that indulges in it from the favour of\nGod.\n\n\"Or, to go further, consider the impossible ideals which you hold up\nwith regard to matrimony. These ideals have a certain beauty of their\nown to persons who can embrace them; they may perhaps be, to use a\nCatholic phrase, Counsels of Perfection; but it is merely ludicrous to\ninsist upon them as rules of conduct for all mankind. Human Nature is\nhuman nature. You cannot bind the many by the dreams of the few.\n\n\"Or, to take a wider view altogether, consider the general standards you\nhold up to us in the lives of your saints. These saints appear to the\nordinary common-place man as simply not admirable at all. It does not\nseem to us admirable that St. Aloysius should scarcely lift his eyes\nfrom the ground, or that St. Teresa should shut herself up in a cell, or\nthat St. Francis should scourge himself with briers for fear of\ncommitting sin. That kind of attitude is too fantastically fastidious\naltogether. You Catholics seem to aim at a standard that is simply not\ndesirable; both your ends and your methods are equally inhuman and\nequally unsuitable for the world we have to live in. True religion is\nsurely something far more sensible than this; true religion should not\nstrain and strive after the impossible, should not seek to improve human\nnature by a process of mutilation. You have excellent aims in some\nrespects and excellent methods in others, but in supreme demands you go\nbeyond the mark altogether. We Pagans neither agree with your morality\nnor admire those whom you claim as your successes. If you were less holy\nand more natural, less idealistic and more practical, you would be of a\ngreater service to the world which you desire to help. Religion should\nbe a sturdy, virile growth; not the delicate hot-house blossom which you\nmake it.\"\n\nThe second charge comes from the Puritan. \"Catholicism is not holy\nenough to be the Church of Jesus Christ; for see how terribly easy she\nis to those who outrage and _crucify Him afresh!_ Perhaps it may not be\ntrue after all, as we used to think, that the Catholic priest actually\ngives leave to his penitents to commit sin; but the extraordinary ease\nwith which absolution is given comes very nearly to the same thing. So\nfar from this Church having elevated the human race, she has actually\nlowered its standards by her attitude towards those of her children who\ndisobey God's Laws.\n\n\"And consider what some of these children of hers have been! Are there\nany criminals in history so monumental as Catholic criminals? Have any\nmen ever fallen so low as, let us say, the Borgia family of the Middle\nAges, as Gilles de Rais and a score of others, as men and women who were\nperhaps in their faith 'good Catholics' enough, yet in their lives a\nmere disgrace to humanity? Look at the Latin countries with their\npassionate records of crime, at the sexual immorality of France or\nSpain; the turbulence and thriftlessness of Ireland, the ignorant\nbrutality of Catholic England. Are there any other denominations of\nChristendom that exhibit such deplorable specimens as the runaway nuns,\nthe apostate priests, the vicious Popes of Catholicism? How is it that\ntales are told of the iniquities of Catholicism such as are told of no\nother of the sects of Christendom? Allow for all the exaggeration you\nlike, all the prejudice of historians, all the spitefulness of enemies,\nyet there surely remains sufficient Catholic criminality to show that at\nthe best the Church is no better than any other religious body, and at\nthe worst, infinitely worse. The Catholic Church, then, is not holy\nenough to be the Church of Jesus Christ.\"\n\nII. When we turn to the Gospels we find that these two charges are, as a\nmatter of fact, precisely among those which were brought against our\nDivine Lord.\n\nFirst, undoubtedly, He was hated for His Holiness. Who can doubt that\nthe terrific standard of morality which He preached--the Catholic\npreaching of which also is one of the charges of the Pagan--was a\nprincipal cause of His rejection. For it was He, after all, who first\nproclaimed that the laws of God bind not only action but thought; it was\nHe who first pronounced that man to be a murderer and an adulterer who\nin his heart willed these sins; it was He who summed up the standard of\nChristianity as a standard of perfection, _Be you perfect, as your\nFather in Heaven is perfect;_ who bade men aspire to be as good as God!\n\nIt was His Holiness, then, that first drew on Him the hostility of the\nworld--that radiant white-hot sanctity in which His Sacred Humanity went\nclothed. _Which of you convinceth me of sin?... Let him that is without\nsin amongst you cast the first stone at her!_ These were words that\npierced the smooth formalism of the Scribe and the Pharisee and awoke an\nundying hatred. It was this, surely, that led up irresistibly to the\nfinal rejection of Him at the bar of Pilate and the choice of Barabbas\nin His place. \"_Not this man!_ not this piece of stainless Perfection!\nNot this Sanctity that reveals all hearts, _but Barabbas_, that\ncomfortable sinner so like ourselves! This robber in whose company we\nfeel at ease! This murderer whose life, at any rate, is in no\nreproachful contrast to our own!\" Jesus Christ was found too holy for\nthe world.\n\nBut He was found, too, not holy enough. And it is this explicit charge\nthat is brought against Him again and again. It was dreadful to those\nkeepers of the Law that this Preacher of Righteousness should sit with\npublicans and sinners; that this Prophet should allow such a woman as\nMagdalen to touch Him. If this man were indeed a Prophet, He could not\nbear the contact of sinners; if He were indeed zealous for God's\nKingdom, He could not suffer the presence of so many who were its\nenemies. Yet He sits there at Zacchaeus' table, silent and smiling,\ninstead of crying on the roof to fall in; He calls Matthew from the\ntax-office instead of blasting him and it together; He handles the leper\nwhom God's own Law pronounces unclean.\n\nIII. These, then, are the charges brought against the disciples of\nChrist, as against the Master, and it is undeniable that there is truth\nin them both.\n\nIt is true that the Catholic Church preaches a morality that is utterly\nbeyond the reach of human nature left to itself; that her standards are\nstandards of perfection, and that she prefers even the lowest rung of\nthe supernatural ladder to the highest rung of the natural.\n\nAnd it is also true, without doubt, that the fallen or the unfaithful\nCatholic is an infinitely more degraded member of humanity than the\nfallen Pagan or Protestant; that the monumental criminals of history are\nCatholic criminals, and that the monsters of the world--Henry VIII for\nexample, sacrilegious, murderer, and adulterer; Martin Luther, whose\nprinted table-talk is unfit for any respectable house; Queen Elizabeth,\nperjurer, tyrant, and unchaste--were persons who had had all that the\nCatholic Church could give them: the standards of her teaching, the\nguidance of her discipline, and the grace of her sacraments. What, then,\nis the reconciliation of this Paradox?\n\n(1) First the Catholic Church is Divine. She dwells, that is to say, in\nheavenly places; she looks always upon the Face of God; she holds\nenshrined in her heart the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ and the\nstainless perfection of that Immaculate Mother from whom that Humanity\nwas drawn. How is it conceivable, then, that she should be content with\nany standard short of perfection? If she were a Society evolved from\nbelow--a merely human Society that is to say--she could never advance\nbeyond those standards to which in the past her noblest children have\nclimbed. But since there dwells in her the Supernatural--since Mary was\nendowed from on high with a gift to which no human being could ascend,\nsince the Sun of Justice Himself came down from the heavens to lead a\nhuman life under human terms--how can she ever again be content with\nanything short of that height from which these came?\n\n(2) But she is also human, dwelling herself in the midst of humanity,\nplaced here in the world for the express object of gathering into\nherself and of sanctifying by her graces that very world which has\nfallen from God. These outcasts and these sinners are the very material\non which she has to work; these waste products of human life, these\nmarred types and specimens of humanity have no hope at all except in\nher.\n\nFor, first, she desires if she can--and she has often been\nable--actually to raise these, first to sanctity and then to her own\naltars; it is for her and her only to _raise the poor from the dunghill\nand to set them with the princes_. She sets before the Magdalen and the\nthief, then, nothing less but her own standard of perfection.\n\nYet though in one sense she is satisfied with nothing lower than this,\nin another sense she is satisfied with almost infinitely nothing. If she\ncan but bring the sinner within the very edge of grace; if she can but\ndraw from the dying murderer one cry of contrition; if she can but turn\nhis eyes with one look of love to the crucifix, her labours are a\nthousand times repaid; for, if she has not brought him to the head of\nsanctity, she has at least brought him to its foot and set him there\nbeneath that ladder of the supernatural which reaches from hell to\nheaven.\n\nFor she alone has this power. She alone is so utterly confident in the\npresence of the sinner because she alone has the secret of his cure.\nThere in her confessional is the Blood of Christ that can make his soul\nclean again, and in her Tabernacle the Body of Christ that will be his\nfood of eternal life. She alone dares be his friend because she alone\ncan be his Saviour. If, then, her saints are one sign of her identity,\nno less are her sinners another.\n\nFor not only is she the Majesty of God dwelling on earth, she is also\nHis Love; and therefore its limitations, and they only, are hers. That\nSun of mercy that shines and that Rain of charity that streams, _on just\nand unjust alike_, are the very Sun and Rain that give her life. If I\n_go up to Heaven she is there_, enthroned in Christ, on the Right Hand\nof God;_ if I go down to Hell she is there also_, drawing back souls\nfrom the brink from which she alone can rescue them. For she is that\nvery ladder which Jacob saw so long ago, that staircase planted here in\nthe blood and the slime of earth, rising there into the stainless Light\nof the Lamb. Holiness and unholiness are both alike hers and she is\nashamed of neither--the holiness of her own Divinity which is Christ's\nand the unholiness of those outcast members of her Humanity to whom she\nministers.\n\nBy her power, then, which again is Christ's, the Magdalen becomes the\nPenitent; the thief the first of the redeemed; and Peter, the yielding\nsand of humanity, the _Rock on which Herself is built_.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nJOY AND SORROW\n\n\n_Rejoice and be exceeding glad.... Blessed are they that mourn_.--\nMATT. V. 12, 5.\n\n\nThe Catholic Church, as has been seen, is always too \"extreme\" for the\nworld. She is content with nothing but a Divine Peace, and in its cause\nis the occasion of bloodier wars than any waged from merely human\nmotives. She is not content with mere goodness, but urges always\nSanctity upon her children; yet simultaneously tolerates sinners whom\neven the world casts out. Let us consider now how, in fulfilling these\ntwo apparently mutually contradictory precepts of our Lord, to rejoice\nand to mourn, once more she appears to the world extravagant in both\ndirections at once.\n\nI. It is a common charge against her that she rejoices too exceedingly;\nis arrogant, confident, and optimistic where she ought to be quiet,\nsubdued, and tender.\n\n\"This world,\" exclaims her critic, \"is on the whole a very sad and\nuncertain place. There is no silver lining that has not a cloud before\nit; there is no hope that may not, after all, be disappointed. Any\nreligion, then, that claims to be adequate to human nature must always\nhave something of sadness and even hesitancy about it. Religion must\nwalk softly all her days if she is to walk hand in hand with experience.\nDeath is certain; is life as certain? The function of religion, then, is\ncertainly to help to lighten this darkness, yet not by too great a blaze\nof light. She may hope and aspire and guess and hint; in fact, that is\nher duty. But she must not proclaim and denounce and command. She must\nbe suggestive rather than exhaustive; tender rather than virile; hopeful\nrather than positive; experimental rather than dogmatic.\n\n\"Now Catholicism is too noisy and confident altogether. See a Catholic\nliturgical function on some high day! Was there ever anything more\narrogant? What has this blaze of colour, this shouting of voices, this\nblowing of trumpets to do with the soft half-lights of the world and the\nmystery of the darkness from which we came and to which we return? What\nhas this clearcut dogma to do with the gentle guesses of philosophy,\nthis optimism with the uncertainty of life and the future--above all,\nwhat sympathy has this preposterous exultation with the misery of the\nworld?\n\n\"And how unlike, too, all this is to the spirit of the Man of Sorrows!\nWe read that _Jesus wept_, but never that He laughed. His was a sad\nlife, from the dark stable of Bethlehem to the darker hill of Calvary.\nHe was what He was because He knew what sorrow meant; it was in His\nsorrows that He has touched the heart of humanity. '_Blessed_,' he says,\n'_are those that mourn_.' Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they\nshall not be disappointed.\"\n\nIn another mood, however, our critic will find fault with our sadness.\n\n\"Why is not the religion of you Catholics more in accord with the happy\nworld in which we live? Surely the supreme function of religion is to\nhearten and encourage and lay stress on the bright side of life! It\nshould be brief, bright, and brotherly. For, after all, this is a lovely\nworld and full of gaiety. It is true that it has its shadows, yet there\ncan be no shadows without a sun; there is death, but see how life\ncontinually springs again from the grave. Since all things, therefore,\nwork together for good; since God has taken pains to make the world so\nsweet, it is but a poor compliment to the Creator to treat it as a vale\nof misery. Let us, then, make the best of things and forget the worst.\nLet us leave the things that are behind and press forward to the things\nthat are before. Let us insist that the world is white with a few black\nspots upon it, be optimistic, happy, and confident.\n\n\"You Catholics, however, are but a poor-spirited, miserable race. While\nother denominations are, little by little, eliminating melancholy, you\nare insisting upon it. While the rest of us are agreeing that Hell is\nbut a bogy, and sin a mistake, and suffering no more than remedial, you\nCatholics are still insisting upon their reality--that Hell is eternal,\nthat sin is the deliberate opposition of the human will to the Divine,\nand that suffering therefore is judicial. Sin, Penance, Sacrifice,\nPurgatory, and Hell--these are the old nightmares of dogma; and their\nfruits are tears, pain, and terror. What is wrong with Catholicism,\nthen, is its gloom and its sorrow; for this is surely not the\nChristianity of Christ as we are now learning to understand it. Christ,\nrightly understood, is the Man of joy, not of Grief. He is more\ncharacteristic of Himself, so to speak, as the smiling shepherd of\nGalilee, surrounded by His sheep; as the lover of children and flowers\nand birds; as the Preacher of Life and Resurrection--He is more\ncharacteristic of Himself as crowned, ascended, and glorified, than as\nthe blood-stained martyr of the Cross whom you set above your altars.\n_Rejoice, then, and be exceeding glad_, and you will please Him best.\"\n\nOnce more, then, we appear to be in the wrong, to whatever side we turn.\nThe happy red-faced monk with his barrel of beer is a caricature of our\njoy. Can this, it is asked, be a follower of the Man of Sorrows? And the\nlong-faced ascetic with his eyes turned up to heaven is the world's\nconception of our sorrow. Catholic joy and Catholic sorrow are alike too\nardent and extreme for a world that delights in moderation in both\nsorrow and joy--a little melancholy, but not too much; a little\ncheerfulness, but not excessive.\n\nII. First, then, it is interesting to remember that these charges are\nnot now being made against us for the first time. In the days even of\nthe Roman Empire they were thought to be signs of Christian inhumanity.\n\"These Christians,\" it was said, \"must surely be bewitched. See how\nthey laugh at the rack and the whip and go to the arena as to a bridal\nbed! See how Lawrence jests upon his gridiron.\" And yet again, \"They\nmust be bewitched, because of their morbidity and their love of\ndarkness, the enemies of joy and human mirth and common pleasure. In\neither case they are not true men at all.\" Their extravagance of joy\nwhen others would be weeping, and their extravagance of sorrow when all\nthe world is glad--these are the very signs to which their enemies\nappealed as proofs that a power other than that of this world was\ninspiring them, as proofs that they could not be the simple friends of\nthe human race that they dared to pretend.\n\nIt is even more interesting to remember that our Divine Lord Himself\ncalls attention to these charges. \"_The Son of Man comes eating and\ndrinking._ The Son of Man sits at the wedding feast at Cana and at meat\nin the rich man's house and you say, _Behold a glutton and a\nwinebibber!_ The Son of Man comes rejoicing and you bid Him to be sad.\nAnd _John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking._ John the\nBaptist comes from the desert, an ascetic with his camel-hair about him\nand words of penance and wrath in his mouth, and you say, _He hath a\ndevil.... We have piped unto you and you have not danced_. We have\nplayed at weddings like children in a market-place, and you have told us\nto be quiet and think about our sins. _We have mourned unto_ you, we\nhave asked you to play at funerals instead, and you have told us that it\nwas morbid to think about death. _We have mourned and you would not\nlament._\"\n\nIII. The fact is, of course, that both joy and sorrow must be an element\nin all religion, since joy and sorrow together make up experience. The\nworld is neither white with black spots nor black with white spots; it\nis black and white. It is quite as true that autumn follows summer as\nthat spring follows winter. It is no less true that life arises out of\ndeath than that death follows life.\n\nReligion then cannot, if it is to be adequate to experience, be a\npassionless thing. On the contrary it must be passionate, since human\nnature is passionate too; and it must be a great deal more passionate.\nIt must not moderate grief, but deepen it; not banish joy, but exalt it.\nIt must weep--and bitterer tears than any that the world can shed--with\nthem that weep; and rejoice too--with _a joy which no man can take\naway_--with them that rejoice. It must sink deeper and rise higher, it\nmust feel more acutely, it must agonize and triumph more abundantly, if\nit truly comes from God and is to minister to men, since His thoughts\nare higher than ours and His Love more burning.\n\nFor so did Christ live on earth. At one hour He _rejoiced greatly in\nspirit_ so that those that watched Him were astonished; at another He\nsweated blood for anguish. In one hour He is exalted high on the blazing\nMount of Transfiguration; in another He is plunged deeper than any human\nheart can fathom in the low-lying garden of Gethsemane. _Behold and see\nif there be any sorrow like to My Sorrow._\n\nIII. For, again, the Church, like her Lord, is both Divine and Human.\n\nShe is Divine and therefore she rejoices--so filled with the New Wine of\nthe Kingdom of her Father that men stare at her in contempt.\n\nIt is true enough that the world is unhappy; that hearts are broken;\nthat families, countries, and centuries are laid waste by sin. Yet since\nthe Church is Divine, she knows, not merely guesses or hopes or desires,\nbut _knows_, that _although all things come to an end, God's commandment\nis exceeding broad_. Years ago, she knows--and therefore not all the\ncriticism in the world can shake her--that her Lord came down from\nheaven, was born, died, rose, and ascended, and that He reigns in\nunconquerable power. She knows that He will return again and take the\nkingdom and reign; she knows, because she is Divine, that in every\ntabernacle of hers on earth the Lord of joy lies hidden; that Mary\nintercedes; that the saints are with God; that _the Blood of Jesus\nChrist cleanseth from all sin_. Look round her earthly buildings, then,\nand there are the symbols and images of these things. There is the merry\nlight before her altar; there are the saints stiff with gold and gems;\nthere is Mary, \"Cause of our Joy,\" radiant, with her radiant Child in\nher arms. If she were but human, she would dare but to shadow these\nthings forth--shadows of her own desires; she would whisper her creed;\nmurmur her prayers; darken her windows. But she is Divine and has\nherself come down from heaven; so she does not guess, or think, or\nhope--she knows.\n\nBut she is human too and dwells in the midst of a human race that does\nnot know and therefore will not wholly take her at her word, and the\nvery height of her exaltation must also be, then, the measure of her\ndespair. The fact that she knows so certainly intensifies a thousandfold\nher human sorrow, as she, who has _come that they may have life_, sees\nhow _they will not come_ to her and find it, as she sees how long the\ntriumph which is certain is yet delayed through their faithlessness. \"If\n_thou hadst known_,\" she cries in the heart-broken words of Jesus\nHimself over Jerusalem, \"_if thou hadst but known the things that belong\nto thy peace! Behold and see, then, if there be any sorrow like to\nmine_, if there be any grief so profound and so piercing as mine, who\nhold the Keys of Heaven and watch men turn away from the Door.\"\n\nSo, then, in church after church stand symbolic groups of statuary,\nrepresenting joy and tragedy, compared with which Venus and Adonis are\nbut childish and half-civilized images--Mary as triumphant Queen, with\nthe gold-crowned Child in her arms, and Mary the tormented Mother, with\nher dead Son across her knees. For she who is both Divine and Human\nalone understands what it is that Humanity has done to Divinity.\n\nIs it any wonder, then, that the world thinks her extravagant in both\ndirections at once; that the world turns away on Good Friday from the\nunutterable depths of her sorrow, and on Easter Day from the unscalable\nheights of her joy, calling the one morbid and the other hysterical? For\nwhat does the world know of such passions as these? What, after all, can\nthe sensualist know of joy, or the ruined financier of sorrow? And what\ncan the moderate, self-controlled, self-respecting man of the world know\nof either?\n\nLastly, then, in the Paradox of Love, the Church holds both these\npassions, at full blast, both at once. As human love turns joy into pain\nand suffers in the midst of ecstasy, so Divine Love turns pain into joy\nand exults and reigns upon the Cross. For the Church is more than the\nMajesty of God reigning on earth, more than the passionless love of the\nEternal; she is the Very Sacred Heart of Christ Himself, the Eternal\nunited with Man, and both suffering and rejoicing through that union. It\nis His bliss which she at once experiences and extends, in virtue of her\nidentity with Him; and in the midst of a fallen world it is the\nsupremest bliss of that Sacred Heart to suffer pain.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nLOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF MAN\n\n\n_Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart ... and thy\nneighbour as thyself_.--LUKE x. 27.\n\n\nWe have already considered two charges brought against Catholicism from\nopposite quarters; namely, that we are too worldly and too otherworldly,\ntoo much busied with temporal concerns to be truly spiritual, and too\nmetaphysical and remote and dogmatic to be truly practical. Let us go on\nto consider these same two charges produced, so to speak, a little\nfurther into a more definitely spiritual plane; charges that now accuse\nus of too great activities in our ministry to men and too many\nattentions paid to God.\n\nI. (i) It is a very common complaint against Catholics, laymen as well\nas clergy, that they are overzealous in their attempts to proselytize.\nTrue and spiritual religion, we are told, is as intimate and personal an\naffair as the love between husband and wife; it is essentially private\nand individual. \"The religion of all sensible men,\" it has been said,\n\"is precisely that which they always keep to themselves.\" Tolerance,\ntherefore, is a mark of spirituality, for if I am truly religious I\nshall have as much respect for the religion of my neighbour as for my\nown. I shall no more seek to interfere in his relations with God than I\nshall allow him to interfere with mine.\n\nNow Catholics are notoriously intolerant. It is not merely that there\nare intolerant Catholics, for intolerance is of course to be found in\nall narrow-minded persons, but it is Catholic principles themselves that\nare intolerant; and every Catholic who lives up to them is bound to be\nso also. And we can see this illustrated every day.\n\nFirst, there is the matter of Catholic missions to the heathen. There\nare no missionaries, we are told, so untiring and so devoted as those of\nthe Church. Their zeal, of course, is a proof of their sincerity; but it\nis also a proof of their intolerance: for why, after all, cannot they\nleave the heathen alone, since religion is, in its essence, a private\nand individual matter? Beautiful pictures, accordingly, are suggested to\nus of the domestic peace and happiness reigning amongst the tribes of\nCentral Africa until the arrival of the Preaching Friar with his\ndestructive dogmas. We are bidden to observe the high doctrines and the\nascetic life of the Brahmin, the significant symbolism of the Hindu, and\nthe philosophical attitudes of the Confucian. All these various\nrelationships to God are, we are informed, entirely the private affairs\nof those who live by them; and if Catholics were truly spiritual they\nwould understand that this was so and not seek to supplant by a system\nwhich is now, at any rate, become an essentially European way of looking\nat things, these ancient creeds and philosophies that are far better\nsuited to the Oriental temperament.\n\nBut the matter is worse, even, than this. It may conceivably be argued,\nsays the modern man of the world, that after all those Oriental\nreligions have not developed such virtues and graces as has\nChristianity. It may perhaps be argued that in time the religion of the\nWest, if missionaries will persevere, will raise the Hindu higher than\nhis own obscenities have succeeded in doing, and that the civilization\nproduced by Christianity is actually of a higher type, in spite of its\nevil by-products, than that of the head-hunters of Borneo and the bloody\nsavages of Africa. But at any rate there is no excuse whatever for the\nintolerant Catholic proselytizer in English homes. For, roughly\nspeaking, it is only the Catholic whom you cannot trust in your own home\ncircle; sooner or later you will find him, if he at all lives up to his\nprinciples, insinuating the praises of his own faith and the weaknesses\nof your own; your sons and daughters he considers to be fair game; he\nthinks nothing of your domestic peace in comparison with the propagation\nof his own tenets. He is characterized, first and last, by that dogmatic\nand intolerant spirit that is the exact contrary of all that the modern\nworld deems to be the spirit of true Christianity. True Christianity,\nthen, as has been said, is essentially a private, personal, and\nindividual matter between each soul and her God.\n\n(ii) The second charge brought against Catholics is that they make\nreligion far too personal, too private, and too intimate for it to be\nconsidered the religion of Jesus Christ. And this is illustrated by the\nsupreme value which the Church places upon what is known as the\nContemplative Life.\n\nFor if there is one element in Catholicism that the man-in-the-street\nespecially selects for reprobation it is the life of the Enclosed\nReligious. It is supposed to be selfish, morbid, introspective, unreal;\nit is set in violent dramatic contrast with the ministerial Life of\nJesus Christ. A quantity of familiar eloquence is solemnly poured out\nupon it as if nothing of the kind had ever been said before: it is said\nthat \"a man cannot get away from the world by shutting himself up in a\nmonastery\"; that \"a man should not think about his own soul so much, but\nrather of what good he can do in the world in which God has placed him\";\nthat \"four whitewashed walls\" are not the proper environment for a\nphilanthropic Christian.\n\nAnd yet, after all, what is the Contemplative Life except precisely that\nwhich the world just now recommended? And could religion possibly be\nmade a more intimate, private, and personal matter between the soul and\nGod than the Carthusian or Carmelite makes it?\n\nThe fact is, of course, that Catholics are wrong whatever they do--too\nextreme in everything which they undertake. They are too active and not\nretired enough in their proselytism; too retired and not active enough\nin their Contemplation.\n\nII. Now the Life of our Divine Lord exhibits, of course, both the Active\nand the Contemplative elements that have always distinguished the Life\nof His Church.\n\nFor three years He set Himself to the work of preaching His Revelation\nand establishing the Church that was to be its organ through all the\ncenturies. He went about, therefore, freely and swiftly, now in town,\nnow in country. He laid down His Divine principles and presented His\nDivine credentials, at marriage feasts, in market-places, in country\nroads, in crowded streets, and in private houses. He wrought the works\nof mercy, spiritual and corporal, that were to be the types of all works\nof mercy ever afterwards. He gave spiritual and ascetic teaching on the\nMount of Beatitudes, dogmatic instructions in Capharnaum and the\nwilderness to the east of Galilee, and mystical discourses in the Upper\nChamber of Jerusalem and the temple courts. His activities and His\nproselytisms were unbounded. He broke up domestic circles and the\nroutine of offices. He called the young man from his estates and Matthew\nfrom custom-house and James and John from their father's fishing\nbusiness. He made a final demonstration of His unlimited claim on\nhumanity in His Procession on Palm Sunday, and on Ascension Day\nratified and commissioned the proselytizing activities of His Church for\never in His tremendous charge to the Apostolic band. _Going, therefore,\nteach ye all nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever\nI have commanded you; and behold I am with you all the days, even to the\nconsummation of the world._\n\nYet this, it must be remembered, was not only not the whole of His Life\non earth, it was not even a very considerable part of it, if reckoned by\nyears. For three years He was active, but for thirty He was retired in\nthe house of Nazareth; and even those three years are again and again\nbroken by retirement. He is now in the wilderness for forty days, now on\nthe mountain all night in prayer, now bidding His disciples come apart\nand rest themselves. The very climax of His ministry too was wrought in\nsilence and solitude. He removed Himself _about a stone's throw_ in the\ngarden of Gethsemane from those who loved Him best; He broke His silence\non the Cross to bid farewell even to His holy Mother herself. Above all,\nhe explicitly and emphatically commended the Life of Contemplative\nPrayer as the highest that can be lived on earth, telling Martha that\nactivity, even in the most necessary duties, was not after all the best\nuse to which time and love could be put, but rather that _Mary had\nchosen the best part ... the one thing that is necessary_, and that it\n_shall not be taken away from her_ even by a sister's loving zeal.\n\nFinally, fault was found with Jesus Christ, as with His Church, on\nprecisely these two points. When He was living the life of retirement in\nthe country He was rebuked that He did not go up to the feast and state\nHis claims plainly--justify, that is, by activity, His pretensions to\nthe Messiahship; and when He did so, He was entreated to bid his\nacclaimants _to hold their peace_--to justify, that is, by humility and\nretirement, His pretensions to spirituality.\n\nIII. The reconciliation, therefore, of these two elements in the\nCatholic system is very easy to find.\n\n(i) First, it is the Church's Divinity that accounts for her passion for\nGod. To her as to none else on earth is the very face of God revealed as\nthe Absolute and Final Beauty that lies beyond the limits of all\nCreation. She in her Divinity enjoys it may be said, even in her sojourn\non earth, that very Beatific Vision that enraptured always the Sacred\nHumanity of Jesus Christ. With all the company of heaven then, with Mary\nImmaculate, with the Seraphim and with the glorified saints of God, she\n_endures, seeing Him Who is invisible_. Even while the eyes of her\nhumanity are held, while her human members _walk by faith and not by\nsight_, she, in her Divinity, which is the guaranteed Presence of Jesus\nChrist in her midst, already _dwells in heavenly places_ and is already\n_come to Mount Zion and the City of the living God and to God Himself_,\nWho is the Light in which all fair things are seen to be fair.\n\nIs it any wonder then that, now and again, some chosen child of hers\ncatches a mirrored glimpse of what she herself beholds with unveiled\nface; that some Catholic soul, now and again, chosen and called by God\nto this amazing privilege, should suddenly perceive, as never before,\nthat God is the one and only Absolute Beauty, and that, compared with\nthe contemplation of this Beauty--which contemplation is, after all, the\nfinal life of Eternity to which every redeemed soul shall come--all the\nactivities of earthly life are nothing; and that, in her passion for\nthis adorable God, she should run into a secret room and _shut the door\nand pray to her Father Who is in secret_, and so remain praying, a\nhidden channel of life to the whole of that Body of which she is a\nmember, an intercessor for the whole of that Society of which she is one\nunit? There in silence, then, she sits at Jesus' feet and listens to the\nVoice which is _as the sound of many waters_; in the whiteness of her\ncell watches Him Whose _Face is as a Flame of Fire_, and in austerity\nand fasting _tastes and finds that the Lord is gracious._\n\nOf course this is but madness and folly to those who know God only in\nHis Creation, who imagine Him merely as the Soul of the World and the\nVitality of Created Life. To such as these earth is His highest Heaven\nand the beauty of the world the noblest vision that can be conceived.\nYet to that soul that is Catholic, who understands that the Eternal\nThrone is indeed above the stars and that the Transcendence of God is as\nfully a truth as His Immanence--that God in Himself, apart from all\nthat He has made, is all-fair and all-sufficient in His own Beauty--to\nsuch a soul as this, if called to such a life, there is no need that the\nChurch should declare explicitly that the Contemplative Life is the\nhighest. She knows it already.\n\n(ii) The _First Great Commandment_ of the Law, then, is inevitably\nfollowed by the Second, and the Catholic interpretation of the Second is\nthought by the world, which understands neither, to be as extravagant as\nher interpretation of the First.\n\nFor this Divine Church that knows God is also a Human Society that\ndwells among men, and since she in herself unites Divinity and Humanity,\nshe cannot rest until she has united them everywhere else.\n\nFor, as she turns her eyes from God to men, she sees there immortal\nsouls, made in the image of God and made for Him and Him alone, seeking\nto satisfy themselves with Creation instead of with the Creator. She\nhears how the world preaches the sanctity of the temperament, and the\nholiness of the individual point of view, as if there were no\nTranscendent God at all and no objective external Revelation ever made\nby Him. She sees how men, instead of seeking to conform themselves to\nGod's Revelation of Himself, attempt rather to conform such fragments of\nthat Revelation as have reached them to their own points of view; she\nlistens to talk about \"aspects of truth\" and \"schools of thought\" and\nthe \"values of experience\" as if God had never spoken either in the\nthunders of Sinai or the still voice of Galilee.\n\nIs it any wonder, then, that her Proselytism appears to such a world as\nextravagant as her Contemplation, her passion for men as unreasonable as\nher passion for God, when that world sees her bring herself from her\ncloisters and her secret places to proclaim as with a trumpet those\ndemands of God which He has made known, those Laws which He has\npromulgated, and those rewards which He has promised? For how can she do\notherwise who has looked on the all-glorious Face of God and then on the\nvacant and complacent faces of men--she who knows God's infinite\ncapacity for satisfying men and men's all but infinite incapacity for\nseeking God--when she sees some poor soul shutting herself up indeed\nwithin the deadly and chilly walls of her own \"temperament\" and\n\"individual point of view,\" when earth and heaven and the Lord of them\nboth is waiting for her outside?\n\nThe Church, then, is too much interested in men and too much absorbed in\nGod. Of course she is too much interested and too much absorbed, for she\nalone knows the value and capacity of both; she who is herself both\nDivine and Human. For Religion, to her, is not an elegant accomplishment\nor a graceful philosophy or a pleasing scheme of conjectures. It is the\nfiery bond between God and man, neither of whom can be satisfied\nwithout the other, the One in virtue of His Love and the other in virtue\nof his createdness. She alone, then, understands and reconciles the\ntremendous Paradox of the Law that is Old as well as New. _Thou shalt\nlove the Lord thy God with thy whole heart ... and thy neighbour as\nthyself _.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nFAITH AND REASON\n\n\n_Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall\nnot enter into it_.--MARK X. 15.\n\n_Some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable\nwrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own perdition_.--\nII PET. III. 16.\n\n\nThere are two great gifts, or faculties, by which men attain to truth:\nfaith and reason. From these two sides, therefore, come two more\nassaults upon the Catholic position, a position which itself faces in\nboth these directions. On the one side we are told that we believe too\nsimply, on the other that we do not believe simply enough; on the one\nside that we reason too little, on the other that we do not reason\nenough. Let us set out these attacks in order.\n\nI. (i) \"You Catholics,\" says one critic, \"are far too credulous in\nmatters of religion. You believe, not as reasonable men believe, because\nyou have verified or experienced the truths you profess, but simply\nbecause these dogmas are presented to you by the Church. If reason and\ncommon-sense are gifts of God and intended for use, surely it is very\nstrange to silence them in your search for the supreme truth. Faith, of\ncourse, has its place, but it must not be blind faith. Reason must test,\nverify, and interpret, or faith is mere credulity.\n\n\"Consider, for example, the words of Christ, _This is My Body_. Now the\nwords as they stand may certainly be supposed to mean what you say they\nmean; yet, interpreted by Reason, they cannot possibly mean anything of\nthe kind. Did not Christ Himself sit in bodily form at the table as He\nspoke them? How then could He hold Himself in His hand? Did He not speak\nin metaphors and images continually? Did He not call Himself _a Door and\na Vine_? Using Reason, then, to interpret these words, it is evident\nthat He meant no more than that He was instituting a memorial feast, in\nwhich the bread should symbolize His Body and the wine His Blood. So too\nwith many other distinctively Catholic doctrines--with the Petrine\nclaims, with the authority 'to bind and loose,' and the rest. Catholic\nbelief on these points exhibits not faith properly so-called--that is,\nFaith tested by Reason--but mere credulity. God gave us all Reason! Then\nin His Name let us use it!\"\n\n(ii) From the other side comes precisely the opposite charge.\n\n\"You Catholics,\" cries the other critic, \"are far too argumentative and\ndeductive and logical in your Faith. True Religion is a very simple\nthing; it is the attitude of a child who trusts and does not question.\nBut with you Catholics Religion has degenerated into Theology. Jesus\nChrist did not write a _Summa_; He made a few plain statements which\ncomprise, as they stand, the whole Christian Religion; they are full of\nmystery, no doubt, but it is He who left them mysterious. Why, then,\nshould your theologians seek to penetrate into regions which He did not\nreveal and to elaborate what He left unelaborated?\n\n\"Take, for example, Christ's words, _This is My Body_. Now of course\nthese words are mysterious, and if Christ had meant that they should be\notherwise, He would Himself have given the necessary comment upon them.\nYet He did not; He left them in an awful and deep simplicity into which\nno human logic ought even to seek to penetrate. Yet see the vast and\ncomplicated theology that the traditions have either piled upon them or\nattempted to extract out of them; the philosophical theories by which it\nhas been sought to elucidate them; the intricate and wide-reaching\ndevotions that have been founded upon them! What have words like\n'Transubstantiation' and 'Concomitance,' devotions like 'Benediction,'\ngatherings like Eucharistic Congresses to do with the august simplicity\nof Christ's own institution? You Catholics argue too much--deduce,\nsyllogize, and explain--until the simple splendour of Christ's\nmysterious act is altogether overlaid and hidden. Be more simple! It is\nbetter to _'love God than to discourse learnedly about the Blessed\nTrinity.' It has not pleased God to save His people through dialectics._\nBelieve more, argue less!\"\n\nOnce more, then, the double charge is brought. We believe, it seems,\nwhere we ought to reason. We reason where we ought to believe. We\nbelieve too blindly and not blindly enough. We reason too closely and\nnot closely enough.\n\nHere, then, is a vast subject--the relations of Faith and Reason and the\nplace of each in man's attitude towards Truth. It is, of course,\npossible only to glance at these things in outline.\n\nII. First, let us consider, as a kind of illustration, the relations of\nthese things in ordinary human science. Neither Faith nor Reason will,\nof course, be precisely the same as in supernatural matters; yet there\nwill be a sufficient parallel for our purpose.\n\nA scientist, let us say, proposes to make observations upon the\nstructure of a fly's leg. He catches his fly, dissects, prepares, places\nit in his microscope, observes, and records. Now here, it would seem, is\nPure Science at its purest and Reason in its most reasonable aspect. Yet\nthe acts of faith in this very simple process are, if we consider\nclosely, simply numberless. The scientist must make acts of faith,\ncertainly reasonable acts, yet none the less of faith, for all that:\nfirst, that his fly is not a freak of nature; next, that his lens is\nsymmetrically ground; then that his observation is adequate; then that\nhis memory has not played him false between his observing and his\nrecording that which he has seen. These acts are so reasonable that we\nforget that they are acts of faith. They are justified by reason before\nthey are made, and they are usually, though not invariably, verified by\nReason afterwards. Yet they are, in their essence, Faith and not Reason.\n\nSo, too, when a child learns a foreign language. Reason justifies him in\nmaking one act of faith that his teacher is competent, another that his\ngrammar is correct, a third that he hears and sees and understands\ncorrectly the information given him, a fourth that such a language\nactually exists. And when he visits France afterwards he can, within\nlimits, again verify by his reason the acts of faith which he has\npreviously made. Yet none the less they were acts of faith, though they\nwere reasonable. In a word, then, no acquirement of or progress in any\nbranch of human knowledge is possible without the exercise of faith. I\ncannot walk downstairs in the dark without at least as many acts of\nfaith as there are steps in the staircase. Society could not hold\ntogether another day if mutual faith were wholly wanting among its\nunits. Certainly we use reason first to justify our faith, and we reason\nlater to verify it. Yet none the less the middle step is faith. Columbus\nreasoned first that there must be a land beyond the Atlantic, and he\nused that same reason later to verify his discovery. Yet without a\nsublime act of faith between these processes, without that almost\nreckless moment in which he first weighed anchor from Europe, reason\nwould never have gone beyond speculative theorizing. Faith made real for\nhim what Reason suggested. Faith actually accomplished that of which\nReason could only dream.\n\nIII. Turn now to the coming of Jesus Christ on earth. He came, as we\nknow now, a Divine Teacher from heaven to make a Revelation from God; He\ncame, that is, to demand from men a sublime Act of Faith in Himself. For\nHe Himself was Incarnate Wisdom, and He demanded, therefore, as none\nelse can demand it, a supreme acceptance of His claim. No progress in\nDivine knowledge, as He Himself tells us, is possible, then, without\nthis initial act. _Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a\nlittle child shall not enter into it_. Every soul that is to receive\nthis teaching in its entirety must first accept the Teacher and sit at\nHis feet.\n\nYet He did not make this claim merely on His own unsupported word. He\npresented His credentials, so to say; He fulfilled prophecy; He wrought\nmiracles; He satisfied the moral sense. _Believe Me_, He says, _for the\nvery works' sake_. Before, then, demanding the fundamental act of Faith\non which the reception of Revelation must depend, He took pains to make\nthis Act of Faith reasonable. \"You see what I do,\" He said in effect,\n\"you have observed My life, My words, My actions. Now is it not in\naccordance with Reason that you should grant My claims? Can you explain\naway, _reasonably_, on any other grounds than those which I state, the\nphenomena of My life?\"\n\nCertainly, then, He appealed to Reason; He appealed to Private Judgment,\nsince that, up to that moment, was all that His hearers possessed. But,\nin demanding an Act of Faith, He appealed to Private Judgment to set\nitself aside; He appealed to Reason as to whether it were not Reasonable\nto stand aside for the moment and let Faith take its place. And we know\nhow His disciples responded. _Whom do you say that I am?... Thou art the\nChrist, the Son of the Living God._\n\nAt that instant, then, a new stage was begun. They had used their Reason\nand their Private Judgment, and, aided by His grace, had concluded that\nthe next reasonable step was that of Faith. Up to that point they had\nobserved, dissected, criticized, and analyzed His words; they had\nexamined, that is, His credentials. And now it was Reason itself that\nurged them towards Faith, Reason that abdicated what had hitherto been,\nits right and its duty, that Faith might assume her proper place.\nHenceforth, then, their attitude must be a different one. Up to now they\nhad used their Reason to examine His claim; now it was Faith, aided and\nurged by Reason, which accepted it.\n\nYet even now Reason's work is not done, though its scope in future is\nchanged. Reason no longer examines whether He be God; Faith has\naccepted it: yet Reason has to be as active as ever; for Reason now must\nbegin with all its might the task of understanding His Revelation. Faith\nhas given them, so to speak, casket after casket of jewels; every word\nthat Jesus Christ henceforth speaks to them is a very mine of treasure,\nabsolutely true since He is known to be a Divine Teacher Who has given\nit. And Reason now begins her new work, not of justifying Faith, but, so\nto say, of interpreting it; not of examining His claims, since these\nhave been once for all accepted, but of examining, understanding, and\nassimilating all that He reveals.\n\nIII. Turn now to Catholicism.\n\nIt is the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church only, that acts as\ndid Jesus Christ and offers an adequate object to Reason and Faith\nalike. For, first, it is evident that if Christ intended His Revelation\nto last through all time, He must have designed a means by which it\nshould last, an Authority that should declare and preserve it as He\nHimself delivered it. And next, it is evident that since the Catholic\nChurch alone even claims that prerogative, clearly and coherently, her\nright to represent that Authority is in proportion to the clearness and\ncoherence of her claim. Or, again, she advances in support of that claim\nprecisely those same credentials as did He: she points to her miracles,\nher achievements, the fulfilment of prophecy, the unity of her teaching,\nthe appeal to men's moral sense--all of them appeals to Reason, and\nappeals which lead up, as did His, to the supreme claim, which He also\nmade, to demand an Act of Faith in herself as a Divine Teacher.\n\nFor she alone demands it. Other denominations of Christendom point to a\nBook, or to the writings of Fathers, or to the example of their members,\nand she too does these things. But it is she alone who appeals to these\nthings not as final in themselves, not as constituting in themselves a\nfinal court of appeal, but as indicating as that court of appeal her own\nLiving Voice. _Believe me, for the works' sake_, she too says. \"Use your\nreason to the full to examine my credentials; study prophecy, history,\nthe Fathers--study my claims in any realm in which your intellect is\ncompetent--and then see if it is not after all supremely reasonable for\nReason to abdicate that particular throne on which she has sat so long\nand to seat Faith there instead? Certainly follow your Reason and use\nyour private judgment, for at present you have no other guide; and then,\nplease God, aided by Faith, Reason will itself bow before Faith, and\ntake her own place henceforth, not on the throne, but on the steps that\nlead to it.\"\n\nIs Reason, then, to be silent henceforth? Why, the whole of theology\ngives the answer. Did Newman cease to think when he became a Catholic?\nDid Thomas Aquinas resign his intellect when he devoted himself to\nstudy? Not for one instant is Reason silent. On the contrary, she is\nactive as never before. Certainly she is no longer occupied in\nexamining as to whether the Church is divine, but instead she is busied,\nwith incredible labours, in examining what follows from that fact, in\nsorting the new treasures that are opened to her with the dawn of\nRevelation upon her eyes, in arranging, deducting, and understanding the\ndetails and structure of the astonishing Vision of Truth. And more, she\nis as inviolate as ever. For never can there be presented to her one\narticle of Faith that gives the lie to her own nature, since Revelation\nand Reason cannot contradict one the other. She has learned, indeed,\nthat the mysteries of God often transcend her powers, that she cannot\nfathom the infinite with the finite; yet never for one moment is she\nbidden to evacuate her own position or believe that which she perceives\nto be untrue. She has learned her limitations, and with that has come to\nunderstand her inviolable rights.\n\nSee, then, how the features of Christ look out through the lineaments of\nHis Church. She alone dares to claim an act of Divine Faith in herself,\nsince it is He Who speaks in her Voice. She alone, since she is Divine,\nbids the wisest men _become as little children_ at her feet and endows\nlittle children with the wisdom of the ancients. Yet, on the other hand,\nin her magnificent Humanity, she has produced through the exercise of\nilluminated human Reason such a wealth of theology as the world has\nnever seen. Is it any wonder that the world thinks both her Faith and\nReason alike too extreme? For her Faith rises from her Divinity and her\nReason from her Humanity; and such an outpouring of Divinity and such an\nemphatic Humanity, such a superb confidence in God's revelation and such\nuntiring labours upon the contents of that Revelation, are altogether\nbeyond the imagination of a world that in reality, fears both Faith and\nReason alike.\n\nAt her feet, and hers only, then, do the wisest and the simple kneel\ntogether--St. Thomas and the child, St. Augustine and the \"charcoal\nburner\"; as diverse, in their humanity, as men can be; as united in the\nlight of Divinity as only those can be who have found it.\n\nSo, then, she goes forward to victory. \"First use your reason,\" she\ncries to the world, \"to see whether I be not Divine! Then, impelled by\nReason and aided by Grace, rise to Faith. Then once more call up your\nReason, to verify and understand those mysteries which you accept as\ntrue. And so, little by little, vistas of truth will open about you and\ndoctrines glow with an undreamed-of light. So Faith will be interpreted\nby Reason and Reason hold up the hands of Faith, until you come indeed\nto the unveiled vision of the Truth whose feet already you grasp in love\nand adoration; until you see, face to face in Heaven, Him Who is at once\nthe Giver of Reason and the _Author of Faith_.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAUTHORITY AND LIBERTY\n\n\n_The truth shall make you free_.--JOHN VIII. 32.\n\n_Bringing into captivity every understanding to the obedience of\nChrist_.--II COR. X. 5.\n\n\nWe have already considered in outline the relations between Faith and\nReason; how each, in its own province, is supreme and how each, in its\nturn, supports and ratifies the other. We pass on to a development of\nthat theme, springing almost immediately out of it, namely, the\nrelations between Authority and Liberty. And we will begin that\nconsideration, as before, as it is illustrated by the accusations of the\nworld against the Church. Briefly they are stated as follows.\n\nI. Freedom, we are told, is the note of Christianity as laid down in the\nGospels, in both discipline and doctrine. Jesus Christ came into the\nworld largely for this very purpose, to substitute the New Law for the\nOld and thereby to free men from the complicated theology and the\nminutia of religious routine which characterized men's attempts to\nreduce that Old Law to practice. The Old Law may or may not have been\nperfectly adapted, when first it was given, to the needs of God's\npeople in the early stages of Jewish civilization; but at any rate it is\ncertain, from a hundred texts in the Gospel, that Jesus Christ in His\nday found it an intolerable slavery laid upon the religious life of the\npeople. Theology had degenerated into an incredible hair-splitting\nsystem of dogma, and discipline had degenerated into a multitude of\nirritating observances.\n\nJesus Christ, then, in the place of all this, preached a Creed that was\nessentially simple, and simultaneously substituted for the elaborate\nceremonialism of the Pharisees the spirit of liberty. The dogma that He\npreached was little more than that God is the Father of all and that all\nmen therefore are brothers; \"discipline\" in the ordinary sense of the\nword is practically absent from the Gospel, and as for ceremonial there\nis none, except such as is necessary for the performance of the two\nextremely simple rites that He instituted, Baptism and the Lord's\nSupper.\n\nNow this supposed spirit of liberty, we are informed, is to-day to be\nfound only in Protestantism. In that system, if it can strictly be\ncalled one, and in that system only, may a man exercise that freedom\nwhich was secured to him by Jesus Christ. First, in doctrine, he may\nchoose, weigh, and examine for himself, within the wide limits which\nalone Christ laid down, those doctrines or hopes which commend\nthemselves to his intellect; and next, in matters of discipline, again,\nhe may choose for himself those ways of life and action that he may\nfind helpful to his spiritual development. He may worship, for example,\nin any church that he prefers, attend those services and those only\nwhich commend themselves to his taste; he may eat or not eat this or\nthat food, as he likes, and order his day, generally, as it pleases him.\nAnd all this, we are informed, is of the very spirit of New Testament\nChristianity. _The Truth has made him free_, as Christ Himself promised.\n\nThe Catholic Church, on the other hand, is essentially a Church of\nslavery. First, in discipline, an enormous weight of observances and\nduties is laid upon her children, comparable only to the Pharisaic\nsystem. The Catholic must worship in this church and not in that, in\nthis manner and not in the other. He must observe places and days and\ntimes, and that not only in religious matters but in secular. He must\neat this food on this day and that on the other; he must frequent the\nsacraments at specified periods; he must perform certain actions and\nrefrain from others, and that in matters in themselves indifferent.\n\nIn dogma, too, no less is the burden that he must bear. Not only are the\nsimple words of Christ developed into a vast theological system by the\nChurch's officials, but the whole of this system is laid, as of faith,\ndown to its minutest details, on the shoulders of the unhappy believer.\nHe may not choose between this or that theory of the mode of Christ's\nPresence in the Eucharist; he must accept precisely that, and no other,\nwhich his Church has elaborated.\n\nIn fact, in doctrine and in discipline alike, the Church has gone back\nto precisely that old reign of tyranny which Christ abolished. The\nCatholic, unlike the Protestant who has retained the spirit of liberty,\nfinds himself in the same case as that under which Israel itself once\ngroaned. He is a slave and not a child; he binds his own limbs, as the\nold phrase says, by his act of faith and puts the other end of the chain\ninto the hands of the priest. Such, in outline, is the charge against\nus.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow much of it is so false that it needs no refutation. It is, for\nexample, entirely false that New Testament theology is simple. It is far\nmore true to say that, compared with the systematized theology of the\nChurch, it is bewilderingly complex and puzzling, and how complex and\npuzzling it is, is indicated by the hundreds of creeds which Protestants\nhave made out of it, each creed claiming, respectively, to be its one\nand only proper interpretation. Men have only come to think it \"simple\"\nin modern days by desperately eliminating from it every element on which\nall Protestants are not agreed. The residuum is indeed \"simple.\" Only it\nis not the New Testament theology! Dogmas such as that of the Blessed\nTrinity, of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, of the nature of grace and\nof sin--these, whether as held by orthodox or unorthodox, are at any\nrate not simple, and it is merely untrue to say that Christ made no\nstatements on these points, however they may be understood. Further, it\nis merely untrue to say that Protestant theology is \"simple\"; it is\nevery whit as elaborate as Catholic theology and considerably more\ncomplex in those points in which Protestant divines are not agreed. The\ncontroversies on Justification in which such men as Calvin and Luther,\nwith their disciples, continually engaged are fully as complicated as\nany disputations on Grace between Jesuits and Dominicans.\n\nYet the general contention is plain enough--that on the whole the\nCatholic is bound to believe a certain set of dogmas, while the\nProtestant is free to accept or reject them. Therefore, it is argued,\nthe Protestant is \"free\" and the Catholic is not. And this brings us\nstraight to the consideration of the relations between Authority and\nLiberty.\n\nII. What, then, is Religious Liberty? It is necessary to begin by\nforming some idea as to what it is that is meant by the word in other\nthan religious matters.\n\nVery briefly it may be said that an individual enjoys social liberty\nwhen he is able to obey and to use the laws and powers of his true\nnature, and that a community enjoys it when all its members are able to\ndo so without interfering unduly one with the other. The more complete\nis this ability, the more perfect is Liberty.\n\nA remarkable paradox at once presents itself--that Liberty can only be\nsecured by Laws. Where there are no laws, or too few, to secure it,\nslavery immediately appears, no less surely than when there are too\nmany; for the stronger individuals are, by the absence of law, enabled\nto tyrannize over the weaker. Even the vast and complex legislation of\nour own days is designed to increase and not to fetter liberty, and its\ngreater complexity is necessitated by the greater complexity and the\nmore numerous interrelationships of modern society. Laws, of course, may\nbe unwise or excessively minute or deliberately enslaving; yet this does\nnot affect the point that for all that Laws are necessary to the\npreservation of Liberty. Merchants, women and children, and citizens\ngenerally, can only enjoy rightful liberty if they are protected by\nlaws. Only that man is free, then, who is most carefully guarded.\n\nIn the same manner Scientific Liberty does not consist in the absence of\nknowledge, or of scientific dogmas, but in their presence. We are\nsurrounded by innumerable facts of nature, and that man is free who is\nfully aware of those which affect his own life. It is true, for example,\nthat two and two make four, and that heavy bodies tend to fall towards\nthe centre of the earth; and it can only be a very superficial thinker\nwho considers that to be ignorant of these facts is to be free from the\nenslaving dogmas of them. If I am ignorant of them I am, of course, in a\nsense at liberty to believe that two and two make five, and to jump off\nthe roof of my house; yet this is not Liberty at all in the sense in\nwhich reasonable people use the word, since my knowledge of the laws\nenables me to be effective and, in fact, to survive in the midst of a\nworld where they happen to be true. That man, then, is more truly \"free\"\nwhose intellect is informed of and submits to these laws, than is the\nman whose intellect is unaware of them. Marconi's intellect submits to\nthe laws of lightning and he is thereby enabled to avail himself of\nthem. Ajax is unaware of them and is accordingly destroyed by their\naction.\n\n_The Truth_, then, _makes us free_. The State which controls men's\nactions and educates their intellects, which, in a word, enforces the\nknowledge of truth and compels obedience to it, is actually freeing its\ncitizens by that process. It is only by a misuse of words or a failure\nto grasp ideas that I can maintain that an ignorant savage is more free\nthan an educated man. It is true that I am, in a sense, \"free\" to think\nthat two and two make five, if I have not learned arithmetic; on the\nother hand, when I learn that they make four I rise into that higher and\nmore real liberty which a knowledge of arithmetic bestows. I am more\neffective, not less so; I am more free to exercise my powers and use the\nforces of the world in which I live, and not less free, when I have\nsubmitted my intellect to facts.\n\nIII. (i) Now the soul too has an environment. Men may differ as to its\nnature and its conditions, but all who believe in the soul at all\nbelieve also that it has an environment, and that this environment is as\nmuch in the realm of Law as is the natural world itself. Prayer, for\nexample, elevates the soul, base thinking degrades it.\n\nNow the laws of this environment were true even before Christ came.\nDavid knew, at any rate, something of penitence and of the guilt of sin,\nand Nathan knew something, at least, of the forgiveness of sins and of\ntheir temporal punishment. Christ came, then, with this object amongst\nothers: that He might reveal the laws of Grace and convey to men's minds\nsome at least of the facts of the spiritual life amongst which they\nlived. He came, moreover, partly to modify the workings of these laws,\nto release some more fully, and to restrain others; in a word, to be the\nRevealer of Truth and the Administrator of Grace.\n\nHe came then, to increase men's liberty by increasing their knowledge,\nas, in another sphere, the scientist comes to us with the same purpose.\nHere, for example, is the law that murder is a sin before God and brings\nits consequences with it, a law stated briefly in the commandment _Thou\nshall not kill_. But our Divine Lord revealed more of the workings of\nthis law than men had hitherto recognized. _I say unto you_, declared\nChrist, _that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer._ He revealed,\nthat is to say, the fact that this law runs even in the realm of\nthought, that the hating spirit incurs the guilt and punishment of\nmurder, and not merely the murderous action. Were men less free when\nthey learned that fact? Not unless I am less free than I was before,\nwhen I learn for the first time that lightning kills. Christ came, then,\nto reveal the _Truth that makes us free_, and He does so by informing\nour intellects and enabling us to _bring into captivity every\nunderstanding to _His obedience_.\n\n(ii) Turn now to the Catholic Church. Here is a Society whose function\nit is to preserve and apply the teaching of Christ; to analyze it and to\nstate it in forms or systems which every generation can receive. For\nthis purpose, then, she draws up not merely a Creed--which is the\nsystematic statement of the Christian Revelation--but disciplinary rules\nand regulations that will make this Creed and the life that is\nconformable to it more easy of realization, and all this she does with\nthe express object of enabling the individual soul to respond to her\nspiritual environment and to rise to the full exercise of her powers and\nrights. As the scientist and the statesmen take, respectively, the great\nlaws of nature and society and reduce them to rules and codes, yet\nwithout adding or taking away from these facts, that are true whether\nthey are popularly recognized or not--and all with the purpose not of\ndiminishing but of increasing the general liberty--so the Church,\ndivinely safeguarded too in the process, takes the Revelation of Christ\nand by her dogma and her discipline popularizes it, so to speak, and\nmakes it at once comprehensible and effective.\n\nWhat, then, is this foolish cry about the slavery of dogma? How can\nTruth make men anything except more free? Unless a man is prepared to\nsay that the scientist enslaves his intellect by telling him facts, he\ndare not say that the Church fetters his intellect by defining dogma.\nChrist did not condemn the Pharisaic system because it was a system, but\nbecause it was Pharisaic; because, that is, it was not true; because it\nobscured instead of revealing the true relations between God and man;\nbecause it _made the Word of God of none effect through its traditions_.\n\nBut the Catholic system has the appearance of enslaving men? Why yes;\nfor the only way of aiming at and using effectively the _truth that\nmakes us free_ is by _bringing into captivity every understanding to the\nobedience of Christ_.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nCORPORATENESS AND INDIVIDUALISM\n\n\n_He that shall lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what doth it\nprofit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own\nsoul?_--MATT. XVI. 25, 26.\n\n\nNo recorded word of our Lord better illustrates than does this the\nstartling and paradoxical manner of His teaching. For He Who _knew what\nwas in man_, Who spoke always down to man's deepest interests, dwelt and\nspoke therefore in that realm of truth where man's own paradoxical\nnature is most manifest; where his interests appear to flourish only by\nbeing ruthlessly pruned; where he rises to the highest development of\nself only by self-mortification. This is, in fact, the very lesson\nChrist teaches in these words. To _find the life_ is the highest object\nof every man and the end for which he was created; yet this can be\nattained only by the _losing of it for Christ's sake_. Individuality can\nbe preserved only by the sacrifice of Individualism. Let us break up\nthis thought and consider it more in detail.\n\nI. (i) Catholics, it is said, are the most fundamentally selfish people\nin the whole world, since all that they do and say and think is\ndirected and calculated, so far as they are \"good Catholics,\" to the\nsalvation of their own souls. It is this that continually crops up in\ntheir conversation, and this that presumably is their chief\npre-occupation. Yet surely this, above all methods, is the very worst\nfor achieving such an end. One does not pull up flowers to see how they\nare growing. The very secret of health is to be unconscious of it.\nCatholics, on the other hand, scarcely ever do anything else; they are\nfor ever examining themselves, for ever going to confession, for ever\ndeveloping and cultivating the narrowest virtues. The whole science of\nCasuistry, for example, is directed to nothing else but this--the exact\ndefinition of those limits within which the salvation of the soul is\nsecure and beyond which it is imperilled; and Casuistry, as we all know,\nhas a stifling and deadening influence upon all who study it.\n\nAgain, see how the true development and expansion of the soul must\nnecessarily be hindered by such an ideal. \"I must not read this book,\nhowever brilliant, since it might be dangerous to my faith. I must not\nmix in this company, however charming, since evil communications corrupt\ngood manners.\" What kind of life is that which must always be checked\nand stunted in this fashion? What kind of salvation can there be that\ncan only be purchased by the sacrifice of so much that is noble and\ninspiring? True life consists in experience, not in introspection; in\ngoing out from self into the world, not in retiring from the world\ninwards. Let us therefore live our life without fear, lose ourselves in\nhumanity, forget self in experience, and leave the rest to God!\n\n(ii) So much for the one side, while from the other comes almost\nprecisely the opposite criticism. Catholics, it is said, are not nearly\nindividualistic enough; on the contrary they are for ever sinking\nthemselves and their personalities in the corporate life of the Church.\nNot only are their outward actions checked and their words guarded, but\neven their very consciences and thoughts are informed and made by the\ncollective conscience and mind of others. It is the highest ambition of\nevery good Catholic _sentire cum ecclesia_; not merely to act and speak\nbut even to think in obedience to others. Now a man's true life, we are\ntold, consists in an assertion of his own individuality. God has made no\ntwo men the same; the mould was made and broken in each several case.\nIf, therefore, we are to be what He meant us to be, we must make the\nmost of our own personalities; we must think our own thoughts, not other\npeople's, direct our own lives, speak our own minds--so far, of course,\nas we can do so without interfering with our neighbour's equal liberty.\nOnce more, therefore, we are bidden to live our life to the full; not in\nthis case, however, because we all share in a common humanity, but\nbecause we do not!\n\nWe Catholics are wrong, therefore, for both reasons and in both\ndirections. We are wrong when we put self first and we are wrong when we\ndo not. We are wrong when we launch out into the current of life, and\nwrong when we withdraw ourselves from its waters. We are wrong when we\ninsist upon our personal responsibility, and wrong when we look to the\nChurch to undertake it.\n\nII. (i) Here then, indeed, is a Paradox; but it is one which our Lord\nHimself expressly emphasizes. For, first, there is nothing on which He\nso repeatedly insists as the supreme and singular value of every soul's\nsalvation. If this is not attained, all is lost. _What shall it profit a\nman if he shall gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own\nsoul?_ All else, then, must be sacrificed if this is in peril. No human\npossession, however great, can be weighed against this. No human tie,\nhowever sacred, can hold against its claim. Not only must _houses and\nlands_, but _father and mother and wives and children_ must take second\nplace, so soon as eternal life is at stake. And yet, somehow or another,\nthis salvation can only be attained by loss; self can only live if it be\nmortified, can only be saved by its own denial. Individuality, as has\nbeen said, can only be preserved by the loss of Individualism.\n\n(ii) But this is not peculiar to the spiritual sphere; it is a paradox\nthat is true, in some sense, of life on every plane--civic,\nintellectual, artistic, human. The man that desires to bring his\nintellectual and personal powers to their highest pitch must\ncontinually be sinking them, so to speak, in the current of his fellows,\ncontinually exhausting, using, and wearing them out. He must risk, and\nindeed inevitably lose, in a very real sense, his personal point of\nview, if he is to have a point of view that is worth possessing; he must\nbe content to see his theories and his thoughts modified, merged,\nchanged, and destroyed, if his thought is to be of value. For, so far as\nhe withdraws himself from his fellows into a physical or mental\nisolation, so far he approaches egotistic madness. He cannot grow unless\nhe decreases; he cannot remain himself unless he ceases to be himself.\n\nSo, too, is it in civic and artistic life. The citizen who truly lives\nto the State of which he is a member--the man to whom his country raises\na monument, for example--is one, always, who has _lost himself_ for his\nnation, whether he has died in battle or sacrificed himself in politics\nor philanthropy. And the citizen who has merely hugged his citizenship\nto himself, who has enjoyed all the privileges he can get and paid\nnothing for them,--least of all himself--who has, so to say, _gained the\nwhole world_, has simultaneously lost himself indeed and is forgotten\nwithin a year of his death. So with the artist. The man who has made his\nart serve him, who has employed it, let us say, purely for the sake of\nthe money he could get out of it, who has kept it within severe limits,\nwho has been merely prudent and orderly and restrained, this man has, in\na sense, _saved his own life_; yet simultaneously he has lost it. But\nthe man to whom art is a passion, to whom nothing else is comparatively\nof any value, who has plunged himself in his art, has dedicated to it\nhis days and his nights, has sacrificed to it every power of his being\nand every energy of his mind and body, this man has indeed _lost\nhimself_. Yet he lives in his art as the other has not, he has _saved\nhimself_ in a sense of which the other knows nothing; and exactly in\nproportion as he has succeeded in his self-abnegation, so far has he\nattained, as we say, immortality. There is not, then, one sphere of life\nin which the paradox is not true. The great historical lovers in\nromance, the pioneers of science, the immortals in every plane, are\nprecisely those that have fulfilled on lower levels the spiritual\naphorism of Jesus Christ.\n\n(iii) Turn, then, once more to the Catholic Church and see how in the\nLife which she offers, as in none other, there is presented to us a\nmeans of fulfilling our end.\n\nFor it is she alone who even demands in the spiritual sphere a complete\nand entire abnegation of self. From every other Christian body comes the\ncry, Save your soul, assert your individuality, follow your conscience,\nform your opinions; while she, and she alone, demands from her children\nthe sacrifice of their intellect, the submitting of their judgment, the\ninforming of their conscience by hers, and the obedience of their will\nto her lightest command. For she, and she alone, is conscious of\npossessing that Divinity, in complete submission to which lies the\nsalvation of Humanity. For she, as the coherent and organic mystical\nBody of Christ, calls upon those who look to her to become, not merely\nher children, but her very members; not to obey her as soldiers obey a\nleader or citizens a Government, but as the hands and eyes and feet obey\na brain. Once, therefore, I understand this, I understand too how it is\nthat by being lost in her I save myself; that I lose only that which\nhinders my activity, not that which fosters it. For when is my hand most\nitself? When separated from the body, by paralysis or amputation? Or\nwhen, in vital union with the brain, with every fibre alert and every\nnerve alive, it obeys in every gesture and receives in every sensation a\nlife infinitely vaster and higher than any which it might, temporarily,\nenjoy in independence? It is true that its capacity for pain is the\ngreater when it is so united, and that it would cease to suffer if once\nits separation were accomplished; yet, simultaneously, it would lose all\nthat for which God made it and, _saving itself_, would be _lost_ indeed.\n\n_I live_, then, the perfect Catholic may say, as none other can say,\nwhen I have ceased to be myself. And _yet not I_, since I have lost my\nIndividualism. No longer do I claim any activity at all on my own\nbehalf; no longer do I demand to form my opinions, to follow my own\nconscience apart from that informing of it that comes from God, or to\nlive my own life. Yet in losing my Individualism I have won my\nIndividuality, for I have found my true place at last. I have _lost the\nwhole world?_ Yes, so far as that world is separate from or antagonistic\nto God's will; but I have _gained my own soul_ and attained immortality.\nFor it is _not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me_.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nMEEKNESS AND VIOLENCE\n\n\n_Blessed are the meek_.--MATT. V. 4.\n\n_The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it\naway_.--MATT. XI. 12.\n\n\nWe have already considered the Church's relations towards such things as\nwealth and human influence and power, how she will sometimes use and\nsometimes disdain them. Let us now penetrate a little deeper and\nunderstand the spirit that underlies and explains this varying attitude\nof hers.\n\nI. (i) It has been charged against Christianity in general, and\ntherefore implicitly and supremely against the Church that was for so\nlong its sole embodiment and is still, alone, its adequate\nrepresentative, that it has fostered virtues which retard progress.\nProgress, in the view of the German philosopher who explicitly made this\ncharge, is merely natural both in its action and its end; and Nature, as\nwe are well aware, knows nothing of forgiveness or compassion or\ntenderness: on the contrary she moves from lower to higher forms by\nforces that are their precise opposite. The wounded stag is not\nprotected by his fellows, but gored to death; the old wolf is torn to\npieces, the sick lion wanders away to die of starvation, and all these\ninstincts, we are informed, have for their object the gradual\nimprovement of the breed by the elimination of the weak and ineffective.\nSo should it be, he tells us, with man, and the extreme Eugenists echo\nhis teaching. Christianity, on the other hand, deliberately protects the\nweak and teaches that the sacrifice of the strong is supreme heroism.\nChristianity has raised hospitals and refuges for the infirm, seeking to\npreserve those very types which Nature, if she had her way, would\neliminate. Christianity, then, is the enemy of the human race and not\nits friend, since Christianity has retarded, as no other religion has\never succeeded in retarding, the appearance of that superman whom Nature\nseeks to evolve.... It is scarcely to be wondered at that the teacher of\nsuch a doctrine himself died insane.\n\nA parallel doctrine is taught largely to-day by persons who call\nthemselves practical and businesslike. Meekness and gentleness and\ncompassion, they tell their sons, are very elegant and graceful virtues\nfor those who can afford them, for women and children who are more or\nless sheltered from the struggle of life, and for feeble and ineffective\npeople who are capable of nothing else. But for men who have to make\ntheir own way in the world and intend to win success there, a more stern\ncode is necessary; from these there is demanded such a rule of action as\nNature herself dictates. Be self-confident and self-assertive then, not\nmeek. Remember that the weakness of your neighbour is your own\nopportunity. Take care of number one and let the rest take care of\nthemselves. A man does not go into the stock-exchange or into commerce\nin order to exhibit Christian virtues there, but business qualities. In\na word, Christianity, so far as it affects material or commercial or\npolitical progress, is a weakness rather than a strength, an enemy\nrather than a friend.\n\n(ii) But if, on the one side, the gentleness and non-resistance\ninculcated by Christianity form the material of one charge against the\nChurch, on the other side, no less, she is blamed for her violence and\nintransigeance. Catholics are not yielding enough, we are told, to be\ntrue followers of the meek Prophet of Galilee, not gentle enough to\ninherit the blessing which He pronounced. On the contrary there are no\npeople so tenacious, so obstinate, and even so violent as these\nprofessed disciples of Jesus Christ. See the way, for example, in which\nthey cling to and insist upon their rights; the obstacles they raise,\nfor example, to reasonable national schemes of education or to a\nsensible system in the divorce courts. And above all, consider their\nappalling and brutal violence as exhibited in such institutions as that\nof the Index and Excommunication, the fierceness with which they insist\nupon absolute and detailed obedience to authority, the ruthlessness with\nwhich they cast out from their company those who will not pronounce\ntheir shibboleths. It is true that in these days they can only enforce\ntheir claims by spiritual threatenings and penalties, but history shows\nus that they would do more if they could. The story of the racks and the\nfires of the Inquisition shows plainly enough that the Church once used,\nand therefore, presumably, would use again if she could, carnal weapons\nin her spiritual warfare. Can anything be more unlike the gentle Spirit\nof Him Who, _when He was reviled, reviled not again;_ of Him Who bade\nmen to _learn of Him, for He was meek and lowly of heart_, and so _find\nrest to their souls?_\n\nHere, then, is the Paradox, and here are two characteristics of the\nCatholic Church: that she is at once too meek and too self-assertive,\ntoo gentle and too violent. It is a paradox exactly echoed by our Divine\nLord Himself, Who in the Upper Chamber bade His disciples who _had no\nsword_ to _sell their cloaks and buy them_, and Who yet, in the garden\nof Gethsemane, commanded the one disciple who had taken Him at His word\nto _put up the sword into its sheath_, telling him that _they who took\nthe sword should perish by it_. It is echoed yet again in His action,\nfirst in taking the scourge into His own Hand, in the temple courts, and\nthen in baring His shoulders to that same scourge in the hands of\nothers. How, then, is this Paradox to be reconciled?\n\nII. The Church, let us remind ourselves again, is both Human and Divine.\n\n(i) She consists of human persons, and those persons are attached both\nto one another and to the world outside by a perfectly balanced system\nof human rights known as the Law of Justice. This Law of Justice, though\ncoming indeed from God, is, in a sense, natural and human; it exists to\nsome extent in all societies, as well as being closely defined and\nworked out in the Old Law given on Sinai. It is a Law which men could\nhave worked out, at any rate in its main principles, by the light of\nreason only, unaided by Revelation, and it is a Law, further, so\nfundamental that no Revelation could conceivably ever outrage or set it\naside.\n\nAt the coming of Christ into the world, however, Supernatural Charity\ncame with Him. The Law of Justice still remained; men still had their\nrights on which they might insist, still had their rights which no\nChristian may refuse to recognize. But such was the torrent of Divine\ngenerosity which Christ exhibited, so overwhelming was the Vision which\nHe revealed of the supernatural charity of God towards men, that a set\nof ideals sprang into life such as the world had never dreamed of; more,\nCharity came with such power that her commands actually overruled in\nmany instances the feeble claims of Justice, so that she bade men\nhenceforward to forgive, for example, not merely according to Justice,\nbut according to her own Divine nature, to _forgive unto seventy times\nseven_, to give _good measure, heaped up and running over_, and not the\nbare minimum which men had merely earned.\n\nIt was from this advent of Charity, then, that all these essentially\nChristian virtues of generosity and meekness and self-sacrifice sprang\nwhich Nietsche condemned as hostile to material progress.\n\nFor, from henceforth, if _a man take thy coat, let him take thy cloak\nalso; if he will compel thee to go with him one mile, go two; if he\nstrike thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also_. The Law of\nNatural justice is transcended and the Law of Charity and Sacrifice\nreigns instead. _Resist not evil_; do not insist always, that is to say,\non your natural rights; give men more than their due, and be yourself\ncontent with less. _Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and\nfind rest to your souls. Forgive one another your trespasses_ with the\nsame generous charity with which God has forgiven and will forgive you\nyours. _Judge not and you shall not be judged._ Do not, in personal\nmatters, insist upon bare justice for yourself, but act on that scale\nand by those principles by which God Himself has dealt with you.\n\nMeekness, then, is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. Sometimes it is\nobligatory, sometimes it is but a Counsel of Perfection; it stands, in\nany case, high among those ideals which it has been the glory of\nChristianity to create.\n\n(ii) But there are other elements in life besides the human and the\nnatural, beyond those personal rights and claims which a Christian may,\nif he is aiming at perfection, set aside out of charity. The Church is\nDivine as well as Human.\n\nFor the Church has entrusted to her, besides the rights of men, which\nmay be sacrificed by their possessors, the rights and claims of God,\nwhich none but He can set aside. He has given into her keeping, for\nexample, a Revelation of truths and principles which, springing out of\nHis own Nature or of His Will, are as immutable and eternal as Himself.\nAnd it is precisely in defence of these truths and principles that the\nChurch exhibits that which the world calls _intransigeance_ and Jesus\nChrist _violence_.\n\nHere, for example, is the right of a baptized Catholic child to be\neducated in his religion, or rather, the right of God Himself to teach\nthat child in the manner He has ordained. Here is the revealed truth\nthat marriage is indissoluble; here that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.\nNow these are not human rights or opinions at all--rights and opinions\nwhich men, urged by charity or humility, can set aside or waive in the\nface of opposition. They rest on an entirely different basis; they are,\nso to speak, the inalienable possessions of God; and it would neither be\ncharity nor humility, but sheer treachery, for the Church to exhibit\nmeekness or pliancy in matters such as these, given to her as they are,\nnot to dispose of, but to guard intact. On the contrary here, exactly,\ncomes the command, _He that hath not, let him sell his cloak and buy a\nsword,_, for here comes the line between the Divine and the Human; let\nall personal possessions go, all merely natural rights and claims be\nyielded, and let a sword take their place. For here is a matter that\nmust be _resisted, even unto blood_.\n\nThe Catholic Church then is, and always will be, _violent_ and\nintransigeant when the rights of God are in question. She will be\nabsolutely ruthless, for example, towards heresy, for heresy affects not\npersonal matters on which Charity may yield, but a Divine right on which\nthere must be no yielding. Yet, simultaneously, she will be infinitely\nkind towards the heretic, since a thousand human motives and\ncircumstances may come in and modify his responsibility. At a word of\nrepentance she will readmit his person into her treasury of souls, but\nnot his heresy into her treasury of wisdom; she will strike his name\neagerly and freely from her black list of the rebellious, but not his\nbook from the pages of her Index. She exhibits meekness towards him and\n_violence_ towards his error; since he is human, but her Truth is\nDivine.\n\nIt is, then, from a modern confusion of thought with regard to the\nrealms of the Divine and the Human that the amazing inability arises, on\nthe world's part, to understand the respective principles on which the\nCatholic Church acts in these two and utterly separate departments. The\nworld considers it reasonable for a country to defend its material\npossessions by the sword, but intolerant and unreasonable for the Church\nto condemn, _resisting even unto blood_, principles which she considers\nerroneous or false. The Church, on the other hand, urges her children\nagain and again to yield rather than to fight when merely material\npossessions are at stake, since Charity permits and sometimes even\ncommands men to be content with less than their own rights, and yet\nagain, when a Divine truth or right is at stake, here she will resist\nunfaltering and undismayed, since she cannot be \"charitable\" with what\nis not her own; here she will _sell her cloak_ and _buy that sword_\nwhich, when the dispute was on merely temporal matters, she thrust back\nagain into its sheath.\n\nTo-day[1] as Christ rides into Jerusalem we see, as in a mirror, this\nParadox made plain. _Thy King cometh to thee, meek_. Was there ever so\nmean a Procession as this? Was there ever such meekness and charity? He\nWho, as His personal right, is attended in heaven by a _multitude on\nwhite horses_, now, in virtue of His Humanity, is content with a few\nfishermen and a crowd of children. He to Whom, in His personal right,\nthe harpers and the angels make eternal music is content, since He has\nbeen made Man for our sakes, with the discordant shoutings of this\ncrowd. He Who _rode on the Seraphim and came flying on the wings of the\nwind_ sits on the colt of an ass. He comes, meek indeed, from the golden\nstreets of the Heavenly Jerusalem to the foul roads of the Earthly,\nlaying aside His personal rights since He is that very Fire of Charity\nby which Christians relinquish theirs.\n\n[Footnote 1: This sermon was preached on Palm-Sunday.]\n\nBut, for all that, it is _riding_ that _thy King cometh to thee_.... He\nwill not relinquish His inalienable claim and He will have nothing\nessential left out. He has His royal escort, even though a ragged one;\nHe will have His spearmen, even though their spears be only of palm; He\nwill have His heralds to proclaim Him, however much the devout Pharisees\nmay be offended by their proclamation; He will ride into His own Royal\nCity, even though that City casts Him out, and He will have His\nCoronation, even though it be with thorns. So, too, the Catholic Church\nadvances through the ages.\n\nIn merely human rights and personal matters again and again she will\nyield up all that she has, making, it may be, but one protest for\nJustice' sake and then no more. And she will urge her children to do the\nsame. If the world will let her have no jewels, then she will put glass\nbeads in her monstrance, and for marble she will use plaster, and tinsel\nfor gold.\n\nBut she will have her Procession and insist upon her Royalty. It may\nseem as poor and as mean and as tawdry as the entrance of Christ Himself\nthrough the royal gate; for she will yield up all that the world demands\nof her, so long as her Divine Right itself remains intact. She will\nissue her orders, though few be found to obey them; she will cast out\nfrom her the rebellious who question her authority, and cleanse her\nTemple Courts even though with a scourge at which men mock. She will\ngive up all that is merely human, if the world will have it so, and will\n_resist not evil_ if it merely concerns herself. But there is one thing\nwhich she will not renounce, one thing she will claim, even with\n_violence_ and \"intransigeance,\" and that is the Royalty with which God\nHimself has crowned her.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE SEVEN WORDS\n\nTHE \"THREE HOURS\"\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe value, to the worshippers, of the Devotion of the Three Hours' Agony\nis in proportion to the degree in which they understand that they are\nwatching not so much the tragedy of nineteen hundred years ago as the\ntragedy of their own lives and times. Merely to dwell on the Death of\nChrist on Calvary would scarcely avail them more than to study the\ndetails of the assassination of Caesar at the foot of Pompey's statue.\nSuch considerations might indeed be interesting, exciting, and even a\nlittle instructive or inspiring; but they could not be better than this,\nand they might be no better than morbid and harmful.\n\nThe Death of Christ, however, is unique because it is, so to say,\nuniversal. It is more than the crowning horror of all murderous\nhistories; it is more even than the _type_ of all the outrages that men\nhave ever committed against God. For it is just the very enactment, upon\nthe historical stage of the world, of those repeated interior tragedies\nthat take place in every soul that rejects or insults Him; since the God\nwhom we crucify within is the same God that was once crucified without.\nThere is not an exterior detail in the Gospel which may not be\ninteriorly repeated in the spiritual life of a sinner; the process\nrecorded by the Evangelists must be more or less identical with the\nprocess of all apostasy from God.\n\nFor, first, there is the Betrayal of Conscience, as a beginning of the\ntragedy; its betrayal by those elements of our nature that are intended\nas its friends and protectors--by Emotion or Forethought, for example.\nThen Conscience is led away, bound, to be judged; for there can be no\nmortal sin without deliberation, and no man ever yet fell into it\nwithout conducting first a sort of hasty mock-trial or two in which a\nsham Prudence or a false idea of Liberty solemnly decide that Conscience\nis in the wrong. Yet even then Conscience persists, and so He is made to\nappear absurd and ridiculous, and set beside the Barabbas of a coarse\nand sturdy lower nature that makes no high pretensions and boasts of it.\nAnd so the drama proceeds and Conscience is crucified: Conscience begins\nto be silent, breaking the deepening gloom now and again with protests\nthat grow weaker every time, and at last Conscience dies indeed. And\nthenceforward there can be no hope, save in the miracle of Resurrection.\n\nThis Cross of Calvary, then, is not a mere type or picture; it is a\nfact identical with that so dreadfully familiar to us in spiritual life.\nFor Christ is not one Person, and Conscience something else, but it is\nactually Christ who speaks in Conscience and Christ, therefore, Who is\ncrucified in mortal sin.\n\nLet us, then, be plain with ourselves. We are watching not only Christ's\nDeath but our own, since we are watching the Death of Christ _Who is our\nLife_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST WORD\n\n_Father forgive them, for they know not what they do_.\n\n\nIn previous considerations we have studied the Life of Christ in His\nMystical Body from an angle at which the strange and innumerable\nparadoxes which abound in all forms of life at a certain depth become\nvisible. And we have seen how these paradoxes lie in those strata, so to\nsay, where the Divinity and the Humanity meet. Christ is God and God\ncannot die; therefore Christ became man in order to be able to do so.\nThe Church is Divine and therefore all-holy, but she dwells in a Body of\nsinful Humanity and reckons her sinners to be her children and members\nno less than her saints.\n\nWe will continue to regard the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Words\nwhich He spoke from the Cross from the same angle, and to find,\ntherefore, the same characteristic paradoxes and mysteries in all that\nwe see. In the First Word we meet the _Paradox of Divine Forgiveness_.\n\nI. Ordinary human forgiveness is no more than a natural virtue,\nresulting from a natural sense of justice, and if a man is normal, his\nforgiveness will be a natural and inevitable part of the process of\nreconciliation so soon as a certain kind of restitution has been made.\nFor example, a friend of mine sins against me--he injures, perhaps, my\ngood name; and my natural answer is the emotion of resentment towards\nhim and, perhaps, of actual revenge. But what I chiefly resent is my\nfriend's stupidity and his ignorance of my real character. \"I am angry,\"\nI say, with perfect sincerity, \"not so much at the thing he has said of\nme, as at this proof of his incapacity to understand me. I thought he\nwas my friend, that he was in sympathy with my character or, at least,\nthat he understood it sufficiently to do me justice. But now, from what\nhe has just said of me, I see that he does not. If the thing he said\nwere true of me, the most of my anger would be gone. But I see that he\ndoes not know me, after all.\"\n\nAnd then, presently, my friend does understand that he has wronged me;\nthat the gossip he repeated or the construction he put upon my actions\nwas not fair or true. And immediately that I become aware of this, from\nhim or from another, my resentment goes, if I have any natural virtue at\nall; it goes because my wounded pride is healed. I forgive him easily\nand naturally because he knows now what he has done.\n\nII. How entirely different from this easy, self-loving, human\nforgiveness is the Divine Forgiveness of Christ! Now it is true that in\nthe conscience of Pilate, the unjust representative of justice, and in\nthat thing that called itself conscience in Herod, and in the hearts of\nthe priests who denounced their God, and of the soldiers who executed\ntheir overlord, and of Judas who betrayed his friend, in all these there\nwas surely a certain uneasiness--such an uneasiness is actually recorded\nof the first and the last of the list--a certain faint shadow of\nperception and knowledge of what it was that they had done and were\ndoing. And, for the natural man, it would have been comparatively easy\nto forgive such injuries on that account. \"I forgive them,\" such a man\nmight have said from his cross, \"because there is just a glimmer of\nknowledge left; there is just one spark in their hearts that still does\nme justice, and for the sake of that I can try, at least, to put away my\nresentment and ask God to forgive them.\"\n\nBut Jesus Christ cries, \"Forgive them because they do _not_ know what\nthey do! Forgive them because they need it so terribly, since they do\nnot even know that they need it! Forgive in them that which is\nunforgivable!\"\n\nIII. Two obvious points present themselves in conclusion.\n\n(1) First, it is _Divine_ Forgiveness that we need, since no sinner of\nus all knows the full malice of sin. One man is a slave, let us say, to\na sin of the flesh, and seeks to reassure himself by the reflection that\nhe injures no one but himself; ignorant as he is of the outrage to God\nthe Holy Ghost Whose temple he is ruining. Or a woman repeats again\nevery piece of slanderous gossip that comes her way and comforts herself\nin moments of compunction by reflecting that she \"means no harm\";\nignorant as she is of the discouragement of souls of which she is the\ncause and of the seeds of distrust and enmity sown among friends. In\nfact it is incredible that any sinner ever _knows what it is that he\ndoes_ by sin. We need, therefore, the Divine Forgiveness and not the\nhuman, the pardon that descends when we are unaware that we must have it\nor die; the love of the Father Who, _while we are yet a great way off,\nruns to meet_ us, and Who teaches us for the first time, by the warmth\nof His welcome, the icy distances to which we had wandered. If we\n_knew_, anyone could forgive us. It is because we do not that only God,\nWho knows all things, can forgive us effectively.\n\n(2) And it is this _Divine_ Forgiveness that we ourselves have to extend\nto those that sin against us, since only those who so forgive can be\nforgiven. We must not wait until wounded pride is made whole by the\nconscious shame of our enemy; until the debt is paid by acknowledgment\nand we are complacent once more in the knowledge that justice has been\ndone to us at last. On the contrary, the only forgiveness that is\nsupernatural, and which, therefore, alone is meritorious, is that which\nreach out to men's ignorance and not their knowledge of their need.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECOND WORD\n\n_Amen I say to thee, to-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise._\n\n\nOur Divine Lord, in this Second Word, immediately applies and\nillustrates the First and drives its lesson home. He shows us how the\nrain of mercy that poured out of heaven in answer to the prayer He made\njust now enlightens the man who, above all others present on Calvary,\nwas the most abjectly ignorant of all; the man who, himself at the very\nheart of the tragedy, understood it less, probably, than the smallest\nchild on the outskirts of the crowd.\n\nHis life had been one long defiance of the laws of both God and man. He\nhad been a member of one of those troops of human vermin that crawl\nround Jerusalem, raiding solitary houses, attacking solitary travellers,\nguilty of sins at once the bloodiest and the meanest, comparable only to\nthe French _apaches_ of our own day. Well, he had been gripped at last\nby the Roman machine, caught in some sordid adventure, and here,\nresentful and furious and contemptuous, full of bravado and terror, he\nsnarled like a polecat at every human face he saw, snarled and spat at\nthe Divine Face Itself that looked at him from a cross that was like his\nown; and, since he had not even a spark of the honour that is reputed to\nexist \"among thieves,\" taunted his \"fellow criminal\" for the folly of\nHis \"crime.\"\n\n\"If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us.\"\n\nAgain, then, the Paradox is plain enough. Surely an educated priest, or\na timid disciple, or a good-hearted dutiful soldier who hated the work\nhe was at, surely one of these will be the first object of Christ's\npardon; and so one of these would have been, if one of ourselves had\nhung there. But when God forgives, He forgives the most ignorant\nfirst--that is, the most remote from forgiveness--and makes, not Peter\nor Caiphas or the Centurion, but Dismas the thief, the firstfruits of\nRedemption.\n\nI. The first effect of the Divine Mercy is Enlightenment. _Before they\ncall, I will answer_. Before the thief feels the first pang of sorrow\nGrace is at work on him, and for the first time in his dreary life he\nbegins to understand. And an extraordinary illumination shines in his\nsoul. For no expert penitent after years of spirituality, no sorrowful\nsaint, could have prayed more perfectly than this outcast. His\nintellect, perhaps, took in little or nothing of the great forces that\nwere active about him and within him; he knew, perhaps, explicitly\nlittle or nothing of Who this was that hung beside him; yet his soul's\nintuition pierces to the very heart of the mystery and expresses itself\nin a prayer that combines at once a perfect love, an exquisite humility,\nan entire confidence, a resolute hope, a clear-sighted faith, and an\nunutterable patience; his soul blossoms all in a moment: _Lord, remember\nme when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom_. He saw the glory behind the shame,\nthe Eternal Throne behind the Cross, and the future behind the present;\nand he asked only to be _remembered_ when the glory should transfigure\nthe shame and the Cross be transformed into the Throne; for he\nunderstood what that remembrance would mean: \"_Remember, Lord_, that I\nsuffered at Thy side.\"\n\nII. So perfect, then, are the dispositions formed in him by grace that\nat one bound _the last is first_. Not even Mary and John shall have the\ninstant reward that shall be his; for them there are other gifts, and\nthe first are those of separation and exile. For the moment, then, this\nman steps into the foremost place and they who have hung side by side on\nCalvary shall walk side by side to meet those waiting souls beyond the\nveil who will run so eagerly to welcome them. _To-day thou shalt be with\nMe in Paradise._\n\nIII. Now this Paradox, _the last shall be first_, is an old doctrine of\nChrist, so startling and bewildering that He has been forced to repeat\nit again and again. He taught it in at least four parables: in the\nparables of _the Lost Piece of Silver, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal\nSon_, and _the Vineyard_. The Nine Pieces lie neglected on the table,\nthe Ninety-nine sheep are exiled in the Fold, the Elder Son is, he\nthinks, overlooked and slighted, and the Labourers complain of\nfavouritism. Yet still, even after all this teaching, the complaint goes\nup from Christians that God is too loving to be quite just. A convert,\nperhaps, comes into the Church in middle age and in a few months\ndevelops the graces of Saint Teresa and becomes one of her daughters. A\ncareless black-guard is condemned to death for murder and three weeks\nlater dies upon the scaffold the death of a saint, at the very head of\nthe line. And the complaints seem natural enough. _Thou hast made them\nequal unto us who have borne the burden and heat of the day_.\n\nYet look again, you Elder Sons. Have your religious, careful, timid\nlives ever exhibited anything resembling that depth of self-abjection to\nwhich the Younger Son has attained? Certainly you have been virtuous and\nconscientious; after all, it would be a shame if you had not been so,\nconsidering the wealth of grace you have always enjoyed. But have you\never even striven seriously after the one single moral quality which\nChrist holds up in His own character as the point of imitation: _Learn\nof Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart_? It is surely significant that\nHe does not say, expressly, Learn of Me to be pure, or courageous, or\nfervent; but _Learn to be humble_, for in this, above all, you shall\n_find rest to your souls_. Instead, have you not had a kind of gentle\npride in your religion or your virtue or your fastidiousness? In a\nword, you have not been as excellent an Elder Son as your brother has\nbeen a Younger. You have not corresponded with your graces as he has\ncorresponded with his. You have never yet been capable of sufficient\nlowliness to come home (which is so much harder than to remain there),\nor of sufficient humility to begin for the first time to work with all\nyour heart only an hour before sunset.\n\nBegin, then, at the beginning, not half-way up the line. Go down to the\nchurch door and beat your breast and say not, God reward me who have\ndone so much for Him, but _God be merciful to me_ who have done so\nlittle. Get off your seat amongst the Pharisees and go down on your\nknees and weep behind Christ's couch, if perhaps He may at last say to\nyou, _Friend, come up higher_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THIRD WORD\n\n_Woman, behold thy son. Behold thy mother_.\n\n\nOur Divine Lord now turns, from the soul who at one bound has sprung\ninto the front rank, to those two souls who have never left it, and\nsupremely to that Mother on whose soul sin has never yet breathed, on\nwhose breast Incarnate God had rested as inviolate and secure as on the\nBosom of the Eternal Father, that Mother who was His Heaven on earth.\nStanding beside her is the one human being who is least unworthy to be\nthere, now that Joseph has passed to his reward and John the Baptist has\ngone to join the Prophets--_the disciple whom Jesus loved_, who had lain\non the breast of Jesus as Jesus had lain on the breast of Mary.\n\nOur Lord has just shown how He deals with His dear sinners; now He shows\nhow He will _be glorified with His Saints_. The Paradox of this Word is\nthat Death, the divider of those who are separated from God, is the bond\nof union between those that are united to Him.\n\nI. Death is the one inexorable enemy of human society as constituted\napart from God. A king dies and his kingdom is at once in danger of\ndisruption. A child dies and his mother prays that she may bear another,\nlest his father and she should drift apart. Death is the supreme sower\nof discord and disunion, then, in the natural order, since he is the one\nsupreme enemy of natural life. He is the noonday terror of the Rich Fool\nof the parable and the nightmare of the Poor Fool, since those who place\ntheir hope in this life see that death is the end of their hope. For\nthese there is no appeal beyond the grave.\n\nII. Now precisely the opposite of all this is true in the supernatural\norder, since the gate of death, viewed from the supernatural side, is an\nentrance and not an ending, a beginning and not a close. This may be\nseen to be so even in a united human family in this world, the members\nof whom are living the supernatural life; for where such a family is\nliving in the love of God, Death, when he comes, draws not only the\nsurvivors closer together, but even those whom he seems to have\nseparated. He does not bring consternation and terror and disunion, but\nhe awakens hope and tenderness, he smooths away old differences, he\nexplains old misunderstandings.\n\nOur Blessed Lord has already, over the grave of Lazarus, hinted that\nthis shall be so, so soon as He has consecrated death by His own dying.\n_He that believeth in Me shall never die_. He, that is to say, who has\n_died with Christ_, whose centre henceforward is in the supernatural,\nsimply no longer finds death to be what nature finds it. It no longer\nmakes for division but for union; it no longer imperils or ends life and\ninterest and possession, but releases them from risk and mortality.\n\nHere, then, He deliberately and explicitly acts upon this truth. He once\nraised Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus and the Widow's Son from the\ndead, for death's sting could, at that time, be drawn in no other way;\nbut now that He Himself is _tasting death for every man_, He performs an\neven more emphatically supernatural act and conquers death by submitting\nto it instead of by commanding it. Life had already united, so far as\nmortal life can unite, those two souls who loved Him and one another so\nwell. These two, since they knew Him so perfectly, knew each the other\ntoo as perfectly as knowledge and sympathy can unite souls in this\nlife. But now the whole is to be raised a stage higher. They had already\nbeen united on the living breast of Jesus; now, over His dead body, they\nwere to be made yet more one.\n\nIt is marvellous that, after so long, our imaginations should still be\nso tormented and oppressed by the thought of death; that we should still\nbe so _without understanding_ that we think it morbid to be in love with\ndeath, for it is far more morbid to be in fear of it. It is not that our\nreason or our faith are at fault; it is only that that most active and\nuntamable faculty of ours, which we call imagination, has not yet\nassimilated the truth, accepted by both our faith and our reason, that\nfor those who are in the friendship of God death is simply not that at\nall which it is to others. It does not, as has been said, end our lives\nor our interests: on the contrary it liberates and fulfils them.\n\nAnd all this it does because Jesus Christ has Himself plunged into the\nheart of Death and put out his fires. Henceforth we are one family in\nHim if we do His will--_his brother and sister and mother_; and Mary is\nour Mother, not by nature, which is accidental, but by supernature,\nwhich is essential. Mary is my Mother and John is my brother, since, if\nI have died with Christ, it is _no longer I that live, but Christ that\nliveth in me_. In a word, it is the Communion of Saints which He\ninaugurates by this utterance and seals by His dying.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOURTH WORD\n\n_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_\n\n\nOur Blessed Lord in the revelation He makes from the Cross passes\ngradually inwards to Himself Who is its centre. He begins in the\noutermost circle of all, with the ignorant sinners. He next deals with\nthe one sinner who ceased to be ignorant, and next with those who were\nalways nearest to Himself, and now at last He reveals the deepest secret\nof all. This is the central Word of the Seven in every sense. There is\nno need to draw attention to the Paradox it expresses.\n\nI. First, then, let us remind ourselves of the revealed dogma that Jesus\nChrist was the Eternal Son of the Father; that He dwelt always in the\nBosom of that Father; that when He left heaven He _did not leave the\nFather's side_; that at Bethlehem and Nazareth and Galilee and Jerusalem\nand Gethsemane and Calvary He was always the _Word that was with God_\nand _the Word_ that _was God_. Next, that the eyes even of His Sacred\nHumanity looked always and continuously upon the Face of God, since His\nunion with God was entire and complete: as He looked up into His\nMother's face from the manger, He saw behind it the Face of His Father;\nas He cried in Gethsemane, _If it be possible_, even in His Sacred\nHumanity He knew that it could not be; as He groaned out on Calvary that\nGod had forsaken Him, He yet looked without one instant's intermission\ninto the glory of heaven and saw His Father there.\n\nYet simultaneously with these truths it is also true that His cry of\ndereliction was incalculably more of a reality than when first uttered\nby David or, since, by any desolate sinner in the thickest spiritual\ndarkness. All the miseries of holy and sinful souls, heaped together,\ncould not approach even afar off the intolerable misery of Christ. For\nof His own will He refused to be consoled at all by that Presence which\nHe could never lack, and of His own will He chose to be pierced and\nsaturated and tormented by the sorrow He could never deserve. He held\nfirm against the touch of consolation every power of His Divine and\nHuman Being and, simultaneously, flung them open to the assaults of\nevery pain. And if the psychology of this state is altogether beyond our\npower to understand, we may remind ourselves that it is the psychology\nof the _Word made Flesh_ that is confronting us.... Do we expect to\nunderstand that?...\n\nII. There is a human phrase, however, itself a paradox, yet\ncorresponding to something which we know to be true, which throws some\nfaint glimmer of light upon this impenetrable darkness and seems to\nextend Christ's experience upon the Cross so as to touch our own human\nlife. It is a phrase that describes a condition well known to spiritual\npersons: \"To leave God for God.\" (1) The simplest and lowest form of\nthis state is that condition in which we acquiesce with our will in the\nwithdrawal of ordinary spiritual consolation. Certainly it is an\ninexplicable state, since both the ordinary aids to our will--our\nunderstanding and our emotion--are, by the very nature of the case,\nuseless to it. Our heart revolts from that dereliction and our\nunderstanding fails to comprehend the reasons for it. Yet we acquiesce,\nor at least perceive that we ought to do so; and that by doing so--by\nceasing, that is, to grasp God's Presence any longer--we find it as\nnever before. We leave God in order to find Him.\n\n(2) The second state is that in which we find ourselves when not only do\nall consolations leave us, but the very grip of intelligent faith goes\ntoo; when the very reasons for faithfulness appear to vanish. It is an\nincalculably more bitter trial, and soul after soul fails under it and\nmust be comforted again by God in less august ways or perish altogether.\nAnd yet this is not the extremest pitch even of human desolation.\n\n(3) For there is a third of which the saints tell us in broken words and\nimages....\n\nIII. Our final point, for application to ourselves, is that dereliction\nin some form or another is as much a stage in spiritual progress as\nautumn and winter are seasons of the year. The beginners have to suffer\none degree, the illuminated another, and those that have approached a\nreal Union with God a third. But all must suffer it, and each in his\nown degree, or progress is impossible.\n\nLet us take courage therefore and face it, in the light of this Word.\nFor, as we can sanctify bodily pain by the memory of the nails, so too\ncan we sanctify spiritual pain by the memory of this darkness. If He Who\n_never left the Father's side_ can suffer this in an unique and supreme\nsense, how much more should we be content to suffer it in lower degrees,\nwho have so continually, since we came to the age of reason, been\nleaving not His side only, but His very house.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIFTH WORD\n\n_I thirst._\n\n\nOur Lord continues to reveal His own condition, since He, after all, is\nthe key to all Humanity. If we understand anything of Him,\nsimultaneously we shall understand ourselves far better.\n\nHe has shown us that He can truly be deprived of spiritual consolation;\nand the value of this deprivation; now He shows us the value of bodily\ndeprivation also. And the Paradox for our consideration is that the\nSource of all can lose all; that the Creator needs His creation; that He\nWho offers us the _water springing up into Life Eternal_ can lack the\nwater of human life--the simplest element of all. In His Divine\nDereliction He yet continues to be Human.\n\nI. It is very usual, under this Word, to meditate on Christ's thirst for\nsouls; and this is, of course, a legitimate thought, since it is true\nthat His whole Being, and not merely one part of it, longed and panted\non the Cross for every object of His desire. Certainly He desired souls!\nWhen does He not?\n\nBut it is easy to lose the proportion of truth, if we spiritualize\neverything, and pass over, as if unworthy of consideration, His bodily\npain. For this Thirst of the Crucified is the final sum of all the pains\nof crucifixion: the physical agony, the fever produced by it, the\ntorrential sweat, the burning of the sun--all these culminated in the\ntorment of which this Cry is His expression.\n\nBodily pain, then, since Jesus not only deigned to suffer it, but to\nspeak of it, is as much a part of the Divine process as the most\nspiritual of derelictions: it is an intense and a vital reality in life.\nIt is the fashion, at present, to pose as if we were superior to such\nthings; as if either it were too coarse for our high natures or even\nactually in itself evil. The truth is that we are terrified of its\nreality and its sting, and seek, therefore, to evade it by every means\nin our power. We affect to smile at the old penances of the saints and\nascetics as if we ourselves had risen into a higher state of development\nand needed no longer such elementary aids to piety!\n\nLet this Word, then, bring us back to our senses and to the due\nproportions of truth. We are body as well as soul; we are incomplete\nwithout the body. The soul is insufficient to itself, the body has as\nreal a part to play in Redemption as the soul which is its inmate and\nshould be its mistress. We look for the _redemption of our body_ and the\n_Resurrection of the Flesh_, we merit or demerit before God in our soul\nfor the deeds done in our body.\n\nSo was it too with our Lord of His infinite compassion. The _Word was\nmade Flesh_, dwelt in the Flesh, has assumed that Flesh into heaven.\nFurther, He suffered in the Flesh and deigned to tell us so; and that He\nfound that suffering all but intolerable.\n\nII. In a well-known book a Catholic poet[1] describes with a great deal\nof power the development of men's nervous systems in these later days,\nand warns his readers against a scrupulous terror lest they, who no\nlonger scourge themselves with briers, should be neglecting a means of\nsanctification. He points out, with perfect justice, that men, in these\ndays, suffer instead in more subtle manners than did those of the Middle\nAges, yet none the less physical; and puts us on our guard lest we\nshould afflict ourselves too much. Yet we must take care, also, that we\ndo not fall into the opposite extreme and come to regard bodily pain,\n(as has been said) as if it were altogether too elementary for our\nrefined natures and as if it must have no place in the alchemy of the\nspirit. This would be both dangerous and false. _What God hath joined\ntogether, let no man put asunder!_ For, if we once treat body and soul\nas ill-matched companions and seek to deal with them apart, instantly\nthe door is flung open to the old Gnostic horrors of sensualism on the\none side or inhuman mutilation or neglect on the other.\n\n[Footnote 1: Health and Holiness by Francis Thompson.]\n\nThe Church, on the other hand, is very clear and insistent that body and\nsoul make one man as fully as God and Man make one Christ; and she\nillustrates and directs these strange co-relations and mutual effects of\nthese two partners by her steady insistence on such things as Fasting\nand Abstinence. And the saints are equally clear and insistent. There\nnever yet has been a single soul whom the Church has raised to her\naltars in whose life bodily austerity in some form has not played a\nconsiderable part. It is true that some have warned us against excess;\nbut what warnings and what excess! \"Be moderate,\" advises St. Ignatius,\nthat most reasonable and moderate of all the saints. \"Take care that you\ndo not break any bones with your iron scourge. God does not wish that!\"\n\nPain, then, has a real place in our progress. Who that has suffered can\never doubt it again?\n\nLet us consider, therefore, under this Word of Christ, whether our\nattitude to bodily pain is what God would have it to be. There are two\nmistakes that we may be committing. Either we may fear it too\nlittle--meet it, that is to say, with Pagan stoicism instead of with\nChristianity--or we may fear it too much. _Despise not the chastening_,\non one side, _or faint_ on the other. It is surely the second warning\nthat is most needed now. For pain had a real place in Christ's programme\nof life. He fasted for forty days at the beginning of His Ministry, and\nHe willed every shocking detail of the Praetorium and Calvary at the\nend. He told us that _His Spirit willed it_ and, yet more kindly, that\n_His Flesh was weak_. He revealed, then, that He really suffered and\nthat He willed it so.... _I thirst._\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIXTH WORD\n\n_It is consummated._\n\n\nHe has finished _His Father's business_, He has dealt with sinners and\nsaints, and has finally disclosed to us the secrets of the Soul and the\nBody of His that are the hope of both sinners and saints alike. And\nthere is no more for Him to do.\n\nAn entirely new Beginning, then, is at hand, now that the Last Sabbath\nis come--the Last Sabbath, so much greater than the First as Redemption\nis greater than Creation. For Creation is a mere introduction to the\nBook of Life; it is the arrangement of materials that are to be thrown\ninstantly into confusion again by man, who should be its crown and\nmaster. The Old Testament is one medley of mistakes and fragments and\nbroken promises and violated treaties, to reach its climax in the\ncapital Mistake of Calvary, when men indeed _knew not what they did._\nAnd even God Himself in the New Testament, as man in the Old, has gone\ndown in the catastrophe and hangs here mutilated and broken. Real life,\nthen, is now to begin.\n\nYet, strangely enough, He calls it an End rather than a Beginning.\n_Consummatum est!_\n\nI. The one and only thing in human life that God desires to end is Sin.\nThere is not a pure joy or a sweet human relationship or a selfless\nambition or a divine hope which He does not desire to continue and to be\ncrowned and transfigured beyond all ambition and all hope. On the\ncontrary, He desires only to end that one single thing which ruins\nrelationships and spoils joy and poisons aspirations. For up to the\npresent there is not one page of history which has not this blot upon\nit.\n\nGod has had to tolerate, for lack of better, such miserable specimens of\nhumanity! _Jacob have I loved!_ ... _David a man after my heart;_ the\none a poor, mean, calculating man, who had, however, that single glimmer\nof the supernatural which Esau, for all his genial sturdiness, was\nwithout; the other an adulterous murderer, who yet had grace enough for\nreal contrition. Hitherto He has been content with so little. He has\naccepted vinegar for want of wine.\n\nNext, God has had to tolerate, and indeed to sanction--such an unworthy\nworship of Himself--all the blood of the temple and the spilled entrails\nand the nameless horrors. And yet this was all to which men could rise;\nfor without it, they never could have learned the more nameless horror\nof sin.\n\nLast, for His worshippers He has had to content Himself with but one\nPeople instead of _all peoples and nations and languages._ And what a\nPeople,--whom even Moses could not bear for their treachery and\ninstability! And all this wretched record ends in the Crime of Calvary,\nat which the very earth revolts and the sun grows dark with shame. Is it\nany wonder that Christ cried, Thank God that is all done with at last!\n\nII. Instead of this miserable past, then, what is to come? What is that\n_New Wine He would drink with us in His Father's Kingdom?_ First; real\nand complete saints of God are to take the place of the fragmentary\nsaints of the Old Dispensation, saints with heads of gold and feet of\nclay. Souls are to be born again in Baptism, not merely sealed by\ncircumcision, and to be purified before they can contract any actual\nguilt of their own. And, of these, many shall keep their baptismal\ninnocence and shall go, wearing that white robe, before God Who gave it\nthem. Others again shall lose it, but regain it once more, and, through\nthe power of the Precious Blood, shall rise to heights of which Jacob\nand David never even dreamed. To _awake in His likeness_ was the\nhighest ambition of _the man after God's Heart;_ but to be not merely\nlike Christ, but one with Him, is the hope of the Christian. _I live_,\nthe new saints shall say with truth, _yet now not I, but Christ liveth\nin me._\n\nNext, instead of the old worship of blood and pain there shall be an\nUnbloody Sacrifice and a _Pure Offering_ in which shall be all the power\nand propitiation of Calvary without its pain, all the glory without the\ndegradation. And last, in place of the old enclosed Race of Israel shall\nbe a Church of all nations and tongues, one vast Society, with all walls\nthrown down and all divisions done away, one Jerusalem from above, that\nshall be the Mother of us all.\n\nIII. That, then, is what Christ intended as He cried, _It is\nconsummated._ Behold _the old things are passed away!_ Behold, _I make\nall things new!_\n\nAnd now let us see how far that is fulfilled. Where is there, in me, the\nNew Wine of the Gospel?\n\nI have all that God can give me from His Throne on Calvary. I have the\ntruth that He proclaimed and the grace that He released. Yet is there in\nme, up to the present, even one glimmer of what is meant by Sanctity? Am\nI even within an appreciable distance of the saints who knew not Christ?\nHave I ever wrestled like Jacob or wept like David? Has my religion,\nthat is to say, ever inspired me beyond the low elevation of joy into\nthe august altitudes of pain? Is it possible that with me the old is\nnot put away, the _old man_ is not yet dead, and the _new man_ not yet\n_put on_? Is that New Sacrifice the light of my daily life? Have I done\nanything except hinder the growth of Christ's Church, anything except\ndrag down her standards, so far as I am able, to my own low level? Is\nthere a single soul now in the world who owes, under God, her conversion\nto my efforts?\n\nWhy, as I watch my life and review it in His Presence it would seem as\nif I had done nothing but disappoint Him all my days! He cried, like the\ndeacon of His own Sacrifice, Go! it is done! _Ite; missa est!_ The\nSacrifice is finished here; go out in its strength to live the life\nwhich it makes possible!\n\nLet me at least begin to-day, have done with my old compromises and\nshifts and evasions. _Ite; missa est!_\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEVENTH WORD\n\n_Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit._\n\n\nHe has cried with a loud voice, and the rocks have rent to its echo, and\nthe earth is shaken, and the Veil of the Old Testament is torn from top\nto bottom as the Old Covenant passes into the New and the enclosed\nsanctity of the Most Holy Place breaks out into the world. And now, as\nthe level sun shines out again beneath the pall of clouds, He whispers,\nas at Mary's knee in Nazareth, the old childish prayer and yields up\nHis spirit into His Father's hands.\n\nThe last Paradox, then, is uttered. He Who saves others cannot save\nHimself! The Shepherd of souls relinquishes His own. For, as we cannot\nsave our lives unless we lose them for His sake, so He too cannot save\nthem unless He loses His for our sake.\n\nI. This, then, is merely the summary of all that has gone before; it is\nthe word _Finis_ written at the end of this new Book of Life which He\nhas written in His Blood. It is the silence of the white space at the\nclose of the last page. Yet it is, too, the final act that gives value\nto all that have preceded it. If Christ had not died, our faith would be\nvain.\n\nOh! these New Theologies that see in Christ's Death merely the end of\nHis Life! Why, it is the very point and climax of His Life that He\nshould lay it down! Like Samson himself, that strange prototype of the\nStrong Man armed, he slew more of the enemies of our souls by His Death\nthan by all His gracious Life. _For this cause He came into the world_.\nFor Sacrifice, which is the very heart of man's instinctive worship of\nGod, was set there, imperishably, in order to witness to and be ratified\nby His One Offering which alone could truly take away sins; and to deny\nit or to obscure it is to deny or to obscure the whole history of the\nhuman race, from the Death of Abel to the Death of Christ, to deny or\nobscure the significance of every lamb that bled in the Temple and of\nevery wine-offering poured out before the Holy Place, to deny or to\nobscure (if we will but penetrate to the roots of things) the free will\nof Man and the Love of God. If Christ had not died, our faith would be\nvain.\n\nII. Once again, then, let us turn to the event in our own lives that\ncloses them; that death which, united to Christ's, is our entrance into\nliberty and, disunited, the supreme horror of existence.\n\n(1) For without Christ death is a violent interruption to life,\nintroducing us to a new existence of which we know nothing, or to no\nexistence at all. Without Christ, however great our hopes, it is abrupt,\nappalling, stunning, and shattering. It is this at the best, and, at the\nworst, it is peaceful only as the death of a beast is peaceful.\n\n(2) Yet, with Christ, it is harmonious and continuous with all that has\ngone before, since it is the final movement of a life that is already\n_dead with Christ_, the last stage of a process of mortality, and the\nstage that ends its pain. It is just one more passing phase, by which is\nchanged the key of that music that every holy life makes always before\nGod.\n\nThere is, then, the choice. We may, if we will, die fighting to the end\na force that must conquer us however we may fight, resisting the\nirresistible. Or we may die, in lethargic resignation, as dogs die,\nwithout hopes or regrets, since the past, without Christ, is as\nmeaningless as the future. Or we may die, like Christ, and with Him,\nyielding up a spirit that came from the Father back again into His\nFatherly hands, content that He Who brought us into the world should\nreceive us when we go out again, confident that, as the thread of His\npurpose is plain in earthly life, it shall shine yet more plainly in the\nlife beyond.\n\nOne last look, then, at Jesus shows us the lines smoothed from His face\nand the agony washed from His eyes. May our souls and the souls of all\nthe faithful departed, through His Mercy, rest in Him!\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nLIFE AND DEATH\n\n\n_As dying, and behold we live_.--II COR. VI. 9.\n\n\nWe have considered, so far, a number of paradoxical phenomena exhibited\nin the life of Catholicism and have attempted to find their\nreconciliation in the fact that the Catholic Church is at once Human and\nDivine. In her striving, for example, after a Divine and supernatural\nPeace, of which she alone possesses the secret, she _resists even unto\nblood_ all human attempts to supplant this by another. As a human\nsociety, again, she avails herself freely of human opportunities and\naids, of earthly and created beauty, for the setting forth of her\nmessage; yet she can survive, as can no human society, when she is\ndeprived of her human rights and her acquired wealth. As human she\nnumbers the great multitude of the world's sinners among her children,\nyet as Divine she has produced the saints. As Divine she bases all her\ngospel on a Revelation which can be apprehended only by Faith, yet as\nhuman she employs the keenest and most profound intellects for its\nanalysis and its propagation. In these and in many other similar points\nit has been attempted to show why she offers now one aspect and now\nanother to human criticism, and how it is that the very charges made\nagainst her become, when viewed in the light of her double claim, actual\ncredentials and arguments on behalf of that claim. Finally, in the\nmeditations upon the _Seven Words_ of Christ, we considered very briefly\nhow, in the hours of the deepest humiliation of His Humanity, He\nrevealed again and again the characteristics of His Divinity.\n\nIt now remains to consider that point in which she most manifests that\ndouble nature of hers and, simultaneously therefore, presents, as in a\nkind of climax, her identity, under human terms, with Him Who, Himself\nthe Lord of Life, conquered death by submitting to it and, by His\nResurrection from the dead, showed Himself _the Son of God with power_.\n\nI. Death, the world tells us, is the final end of all things, and is the\none universal law of which evasion is impossible; and this is true, not\nof the individual only, but of society, of nations, of civilization, and\neven, it would seem, ultimately of physical life itself. Every vital\nenergy therefore that we possess can be directed not to the abolition,\nbut only to the postponement of this final full close to which the most\necstatic created harmony must come at last.\n\nOur physicians cannot heal us, they can merely ward off death for a\nlittle. Our statesmen cannot establish an eternal federation, they can\nbut help to hold a crumbling society together for a little longer. Our\ncivilization cannot really evolve an immortal superman, it can but\nrender ordinary humanity a little less mortal, temporarily and in\noutward appearance. Death, then, in the world's opinion, is the duellist\nwho is bound to win. We may parry, evade, leap aside for a little; we\nmay even advance upon him and seem to threaten his very existence; our\nenergies, in fact, must be concentrated upon this conflict if we are to\nsurvive at all. But it is only in seeming, at the best. The moment must\ncome when, driven back to the last barrier, our last defence falters ...\nand Death has only to wipe his sword.\n\nNow the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Death is not only the\nmost violent reversal of the world's policy, but the most paradoxical,\ntoo, of all her methods. For, while the world attempts to keep Death at\narm's length, the Church strives to embrace him. Where the world draws\nhis sword to meet Death's assault, the Church spreads her heart only to\nreceive it. She is in love with Death, she pursues him, honours him,\nextols Him. She places over her altars not a Risen Christ, but a dying\nOne.\n\n_If thou wilt be perfect_, she cries to the individual soul, _give up\nall that thou hast and follow me_. \"Give up all that makes life worth\nliving, strip thyself of every advantage that sustains thy life, of all\nthat makes thee effective.\" It is this that is her supreme appeal, not\nindeed uttered, with all its corollaries, to all her children, but to\nthose only that desire perfection. Yet to all, in a sense, the appeal is\nthere. _Die daily_, die to self, mortify, yield, give in. If _any man\nwill save his life, he must lose it_.\n\nSo too, in her dealings with society, is her policy judged suicidal by a\nworld that is in love with its own kind of life. It is suicidal, cries\nthat world, to relinquish in France all on which the temporal life of\nthe Church depends; for how can that society survive which renounces the\nvery means of existence? It is suicidal to demand the virgin life of the\nnoblest of her children, suicidal to desert the monarchical cause of one\ncountry, and to set herself in opposition to the Republican ideals of\nanother. For even she, after all, is human and must conform to human\nconditions. Even she, however august her claims, must make terms with\nthe world if she desires to live in it.\n\nAnd this comment has been made upon her actions in every age. She\ncondemned Arius, when a little compromise might surely have been found;\nand lost half her children. She condemned Luther and lost Germany;\nElizabeth, and lost England. At every crisis she has made the wrong\nchoice, she has yielded when she should have resisted, resisted when she\nshould have yielded. The wonder is that she survives at all.\n\nYes, that is the wonder. _As dying, behold she lives_!\n\nII. The answer of course is easy. It is that she simply does not desire\nthe kind of life which the world reckons alone to be life. To her that\nis not life at all. She desires of course to survive as a human society,\nand she is assured that she always shall so survive. Yet it is not on\nthe ordinary terms of ordinary society that she desires survival. It is\nnot a _natural_ life of which she is ambitious, a life that draws its\nstrength from human conditions and human environment, a life, therefore,\nthat waxes and wanes with those human conditions and ultimately meets\ntheir fate, but a _supernatural_ life that draws its strength from God.\nAnd she recognizes, as one of the most fundamental paradoxes of all,\nthat such a life can be gained and held only through what the world\ncalls \"death.\"\n\nShe does not, then, want merely the life of a prosperous human state,\nwhether monarchy or republic. There are times indeed in her history when\nsuch an accompaniment to her real existence is useful to her\neffectiveness; and she has, of course, the right, as have other\nsocieties, to earthly dominions that may have been won and presented to\nher by her children. Or through her ministers, as in Paraguay, she may\nadminister for a while the ordinary civil affairs of men who choose to\nbe loyal to her government. Yet if, for one instant, such a\nresponsibility were really to threaten her spiritual effectiveness--if,\nthat is, the choice were really presented to her between spiritual and\ntemporal dominion--she would let all the kingdoms of the world go in an\ninstant, to retain her kingdom from God; she would gladly _suffer the\nloss of all things_ to retain Christ.\n\nAnd how is it possible to deny for one instant that her success has been\nstartling and overwhelming--this fructification of Life by Death.\n\nAre there any human beings, for example, who have been more effective\nand influential than her saints--men and women, that is to say, who have\n_died daily_, in order to live indeed? They have not, it is true,\nprospered, let us say, as business men, directors of companies, or\ngovernment officials, but such a success is simply not her ideal for\nthem, not their own ideal for themselves. That is precisely the kind of\nlife to which they have, as a rule, determinedly and perseveringly died.\nYet their effectiveness in this world has been none the less. Are any\nkings remembered as is the beggar Labre who gnawed cabbage stalks in the\ngutters of Rome? Are the names of any statesmen of, let us say, even a\nhundred years ago, reverenced and repeated as is the name of the woman\nof Spain called Teresa of Jesus who, four hundred years ago, ruled a few\nnuns within the enclosure of a convent? Are any musicians or artists\nloved to-day with such rapture as is God's little troubadour, called\nFrancis, who made music for himself and the angels by rubbing one stick\nacross another?\n\nOr, again, is any empire that the world has ever seen so great, so\nloyally united in itself, so universal and yet so rigorous as is that\nspiritual empire whose capital is Rome? Is there any nation with so\nfierce a patriotism as she who is Supernational? Earthly kings speak\nfrom their thrones and what happens? And an old man in Rome who wears\nthree crowns on his head speaks from his prison in the Vatican and all\nthe earth rings with it.\n\nHas her policy, then, been so suicidal after all? From the world's point\nof view it has never been anything else. Her history is but one long\nexample of the sacrifice of human activities and earthly opportunities;\nshe has expelled from her pulpits the most brilliant of her children,\nshe has silenced or alienated the most eloquent of her defenders. She\nhas cut off from herself all that she should have kept, and hugged to\nher arms all that she should have relinquished! She has never done\nanything but die! She never does anything but live!\n\nIII. Turn, then, to the life of her Lord for the solution of this\nriddle. Last week[1] He was going to His Death. He was losing, little by\nlittle, all that bound Him to Life. The multitudes that had followed Him\nhitherto were leaving Him by units and groups, they who might have\nformed His armies to seat Him on the throne of His father David.\nDisloyalty had made its way even among His chosen body-guard, and\nalready Judas is bargaining for the price of His Master's blood. Even\nthe most loyal of all are dismayed, and presently will _forsake Him and\nflee_ when the swords flash out in the garden of Gethsemane. A few weeks\nago in Galilee thousands were leaving Him for the last time; and when,\nonce again, a company seemed to rally, He wept! And so at last the\nsacrifice was complete and, one by one, He laid down of His own will\nevery tie that kept Him in life. And then on Good Friday itself He\nsuffered that beauty of His _Face to be marred_ so that no man would\never _desire Him_ any more, silenced the melody of the Voice that had\nbroken so many hearts and made them whole again; He stretched out His\nShepherd's Hands with which alone He could gather His sheep to His\nBreast, and the Feet that alone could bear Him into the wilderness to\n_seek after that which was lost_. Was there ever a Suicide such as this,\nsuch a despair of high hopes, such a ruin of all ambition, a dying so\ncomplete and irremediable as the Dying of Jesus Christ?\n\n[Footnote 1: This Sermon was preached on Easter Day.]\n\nAnd now on Easter Day look at Him again and see how He lives as never\nbefore. See how the Life that has been His for thirty years--the Life of\nGod made Man--itself pales almost to a phantom before the glory of that\nsame Life transfigured by Death. Three days ago He fainted beneath the\nscourge and nails; now He shows the very scars of His Passion to be the\nemblems of immortal strength. Three days ago He spoke in human words to\nthose only that were near Him, and limited Himself under human terms of\nspace and time; He speaks now in every heart. Three days ago He gave His\nBody to the few who knelt at His Table; to-day in ten thousand\ntabernacles that same Body may be worshipped by all who come.\n\nIn a word, He has exchanged a Natural Life for a Supernatural in every\nplane at once. He has laid down the Natural Life of His Body to take it\nback again supernaturalized for ever. He has died that His Life may be\nreleased; He has _finished_ in order to begin.\n\nIt is easy, then, to see why it is that the Church _dies daily_, why it\nis that she is content to be stripped of all that makes her life\neffective, why she too permits her hands to be bound and her feet\nfettered and her beauty marred and her voice silenced so far as men can\ndo those things. She is human? Yes; she dwells in a _body that is\nprepared_ for her, but prepared chiefly that she may suffer in it. Her\nfar-reaching hands are not hers merely that she may bind up with them\nthe broken-hearted, nor her swift feet hers merely that she may run on\nthem to succour the perishing, nor her head and heart hers merely that\nshe may ponder and love. But all this sensitive human organism is hers\nthat at last she may agonize in it, bleed from it from a thousand\nwounds, be lifted up in it to draw all men to her cross.\n\nShe does not desire, then, in this world, the _throne of her Father\nDavid_, nor the kind of triumph which is the only kind that the world\nunderstands to be so. She desires one life and one triumph only--the\nRisen Life of her Saviour. And this, at last, is the transfiguration of\nher Humanity by the power of her Divinity and the vindication of them\nboth.","title":"Paradoxes of Catholicism","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":34737}