Produced by Geoff Horton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON _These sermons (which the following pages contain in a much abbreviated form) were delivered, partly in England in various places and at various times, partly in New York in the Lent of 1912, and finally, as a complete course, in the church of S. Silvestro-in-Capite, in Rome, in the Lent of 1913. Some of the ideas presented in this book have already been set out in a former volume entitled "Christ in the Church" and a few in the meditations upon the Seven Words, in another volume, but in altogether other connexions. The author thought it better, therefore, to risk repetition rather than incoherency in the present set of considerations. It is hoped that the repetitions are comparatively few. Italics have been used for all quotations, whether verbal or substantial, from Holy Scripture and other literature_. ROBERT HUGH BENSON HARE STREET HOUSE, BUNTINGFORD EASTER, 1913 CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY (i) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN (ii) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN I PEACE AND WAR II WEALTH AND POVERTY III SANCTITY AND SIN IV JOY AND SORROW V LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF MAN VI FAITH AND REASON VII AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY VIII CORPORATENESS AND INDIVIDUALISM IX MEEKNESS AND VIOLENCE X THE SEVEN WORDS XI LIFE AND DEATH PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM INTRODUCTORY (i) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN _I and My Father are one_.--JOHN X. 30. _My Father is greater than I_.--JOHN XIV. 20. The mysteries of the Church, a materialistic scientist once announced to an astonished world, are child's play compared with the mysteries of nature.[1] He was completely wrong, of course, yet there was every excuse for his mistake. For, as he himself tells us in effect, he found everywhere in that created nature which he knew so well, anomaly piled on anomaly and paradox on paradox, and he knew no more of theology than its simpler and more explicit statements. [Footnote 1: Professor Huxley.] We can be certain therefore--we who understand that the mysteries of nature are, after all, within the limited circle of created life, while the mysteries of grace run up into the supreme Mystery of the eternal and uncreated Life of God--we can be certain that, if nature is mysterious and paradoxical, grace will be incalculably more mysterious. For every paradox in the world of matter, in whose environment our bodies are confined, we shall find a hundred in that atmosphere of spirit in which our spirits breathe and move--those spirits of ours which, themselves, paradoxically enough, are forced to energize under material limitations.