Catholic priest (1871-1914)
There are certain moods into which minds, very much tired or very much concentrated, occasionally fall, in which the most trifling things take on them an appearance of great significance. A man in great anxiety, for example, will regard as omens or warnings such things as the ringing of a bell or the flight of a bird. I have heard this process deliberately defended by people who should know better. I have heard it said that those moods of intense concentration are, as a matter of fact states of soul in which the intuitive or mystical faculties work with great facility, and that at such times connections and correlations are perceived which at other times pass unnoticed. The events of the world then are, by such people, regarded as forming links in a chain of purpose--events even which are obviously to the practical man merely the effects of chance and accident. It is utterly impossible, says the practical man, that the ringing of a bell, or the grouping of tea-leaves, or the particular moment at which a picture falls from a wall, can be anything but fortuitous: and it is the sign of a weak and superstitious mind to regard them as anything else. There can be no purpose or sequence except in matters where we can perceive purpose or sequence.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
None Other Gods
There are few catastrophes so great and irremediable as those that follow an excess of zeal.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
A Winnowing
The essence of a perfect friendship is that each friend reveals himself utterly to the other, flings aside his reserves and shows himself for what he truly is.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The Friendship of Christ
But will science ever account for it all? That I leave to God.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lourdes
When religion fails us, we console ourselves with the arts; when love or ambition disappoint us, we plunge into physical pleasures; when the body refuses to respond, we take refuge in our indomitable pride; and when that in its turn crumbles to nothing, we look to suicide and hell as a more tolerable environment. There seems no depth to which we will not go, in our passionate determination to make ourselves tolerable to ourselves.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The Friendship of Christ
We believe, it seems, where we ought to reason. We reason where we ought to believe. We believe too blindly and not blindly enough. We reason too closely and not closely enough.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Paradoxes of Catholicism
There was no God but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
Friendliness took the place of charity, contentment the place of hope, and knowledge the place of faith.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
It is only the souls that do not love that go empty in this world.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary
You say Christianity is absurd and impossible. Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue--I am not speaking of that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely true--but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent as well.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
Men do recognise at last that a supernatural Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
There is no arguing with people who say that, since there is nothing but Nature, no process can be other than natural. There is no sign, even from heaven, that could break down the intellectual prejudice of such people. If they saw Jesus Christ Himself in glory, they could always say that "at present science cannot account for the phenomenon of a luminous body apparently seated upon a throne, but no doubt it will do so in the course of time."
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lourdes
A broken heart and God's will done would be better than that God's will should be avoided and her own satisfied.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Come Rack! Come Rope!
Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God's strength, and found it.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
The union of the family lies in love; and love is the only reconciliation of authority and liberty.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Dawn of All
There are two great gifts, or faculties, by which men attain to truth: faith and reason.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Paradoxes of Catholicism
In the ages of faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
For where men have made the earth that is trodden underfoot, and have largely veiled the heavens themselves, it is but natural that they should think that they have made everything, and that it is they who rule it.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Come Rack! Come Rope!
God is the one and only Absolute Beauty.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Paradoxes of Catholicism
I must tell you, too, something of my religion at that time. It was the religion of most well-taught boys. In the fore-ground, if I may put it so, was morality: I must not do certain things; I must do certain other things. In the middle distance was a perception of God. Let me say that I realised that I was present to Him, but not that He was present to me. Our Saviour dwelt in this middle distance, one whom I fancied ordinarily tender, sometimes stern. In the background there lay certain mysteries, sacramental and otherwise. These were chiefly the affairs of grown-up people. And infinitely far away, like clouds piled upon the horizon of a sea, was the invisible world of heaven whence God looked at me, golden gates and streets, now towering in their exclusiveness, now on Sunday evenings bright with a light of hope, now on wet mornings unutterably dreary. But all this was uninteresting to me. Here about me lay the tangible enjoyable world--this was reality: there in a misty picture lay religion, claiming, as I knew, my homage, but not my heart.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The Light Invisible