a Friendship, it must be remembered, that is open not to Catholics only, but to all who know the Name of Jesus, and indeed, in a sense, to every human being. For our Lord is the "light that enlighteneth every man,"{1} it is His Voice that speaks through conscience, however faulty that instrument may be; it is He, since He is the Only Absolute, who is the dim Ideal Figure discerned standing in the gloom of all hearts who desire Him; it is He whom Marcus Aurelius and Gautama and Confucius and Mahomet, with all their sincere disciples, so far as they were true to themselves, desired, even though they never heard His historical Name of Jesus, or, having heard it, rejected Him, so far as that rejection was without their own fault.
This, then, is the explanation of Non-Catholic, and even of Non-Christian, piety. It would be terrible if it were not so; for in that case we could not claim that our Saviour could be, in any real sense, the Saviour of the world.
Benson begins his explication of this aspect of the Friendship of Christ with Adoration of Jesus in the Tabernacle (or, in some cases, in the Monstrance):
It is this Presence which causes that astounding difference of atmosphere, confessed even by Non-Catholics, between Catholic churches and all others. So marked is this difference that a thousand explanations have to be framed to account for it. It is the suggestiveness of the single point of light burning there! It is the preternatural artistic skill with which the churches are ordered! It is the smell of ancient incense! It is anything and everything except that which we Catholics know it to be -- the actual bodily Presence of the Fairest of the children of men, drawing His friends to Himself! . . .
It is in this manner, then, that He fulfils that essential of true Friendship, which we call Humility. He places Himself at the mercy of the world whom He desires to win for Himself. He offers Himself there in a poorer disguise even than "in the days of His Flesh,"{3} yet, by the faith and teaching of His Church, by the ceremonies with which she greets His Presence, and by the recognition by His friends, He indicates to those who long to recognize Him and who love Him, and (though they may not know it), that it is He Himself Who is there, the Desire of all nations and the Lover of every soul.
He hints at the atmosphere and architecture of Catholic churches, with the Sanctuary candle, the side altars or chapels, the Holy Water stoups, the clear difference between the Nave (the pews) and the Sanctuary, either with a Communion rail, or steps and definite space between, etc. You can tell if there's been a Funeral Mass celebrated in the church when you enter and scent the fading perfume of the incense.
Benson also doesn't mention some of those "ceremonies", but our external actions as Catholics when we enter a church, knowing that Jesus is in the Tabernacle--even the fact that we use that language is extraordinary!--demonstrate that we know we have entered a sacred Presence. Men take off their hats; some women put on veils or keep on their hats; we bless ourselves with blessed Holy Water and the Sign of the Cross; we genuflect or bow when we enter the nave of the church; we keep silence as much as possible; and we pray! Those are actions that certainly demonstrate that we know something is different here than when we were in the parking lot or even on the sidewalk before we entered the church.
There is also the tradition of the making the Sign of the Cross when we pass by a Catholic church because we know Who is there!
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One day around 1917, a young Jewish woman, a student and teacher of philosophy, visited Frankfurt Cathedral. She noticed another woman going into the church with a shopping basket in her hands to say a quick prayer.
The Jewish woman, whose name was Edith Stein, was astounded. She said:“This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.”
Because the church wasn't empty!
Since I've never been a Protestant (and have only been in Protestant churches for family weddings or funerals or some concerts, or as tourist in some Anglican/Episcopalian churches in England* and New York City**), I don't know how they enter their churches and don't remember any particular gestures they made (except men taking off their hats, I suppose) when I was there. And because different Protestant denominations have different kinds of churches or sanctuaries, there's probably a range of responses. Perhaps Matt can address that.
He first becomes present on the altar, at the word of His priest, in the form of a Victim. In the Sacrifice of the Mass He presents Himself before the world, as well as before the eyes of the Eternal Father, in the same significance as that in which He hung upon the Cross, performing the same act which He did once for all, the same act by which He displayed that passion of friendship in whose name He claims our hearts, the climax of that Greatest Love of all by which He "laid down His Life for His friends."{4}
Benson then movingly describes how we receive Holy Communion as a deeper way into the Friendship of Christ:
And yet there is one last step of humiliation, even deeper, down which He comes to us -- that step by which our Victim and our Friend descends to be our Food. For, so great is His Love to us that it is not enough for Him to remain as an object of adoration, not enough for Him to lie there as our sin-bearer -- not enough, above all, for Him to dwell within our souls in an interior friendship in a mode apprehensible only to illuminated eyes. But, in Communion, He hurries down that very stairway of sense up which we so often seek to climb in vain. While we are "yet a great way off"{7} He runs to meet us; and there, flinging aside those poor signs of royalty with which we strive to honour Him, leaving there the embroidery and the flowers and the lights, He not merely unites Himself to us, Soul to soul, in the intimacy of prayer, but Body to body in the sensible form of His Sacramental Life. . .
In these excerpts, I think you can see that a reader has to adapt herself to Benson's way of writing and expressing his love for Jesus and his encouragement to respond to the Friendship of Christ. Every reader has to accommodate every author's style of course, but Benson uses the frame of the Friendship of Christ throughout to explore both the interior and exterior lives of Catholics. [Furthermore, I think a reader has to acknowledge and respond to the times and circumstances in which the author wrote; they had an influence on him or her just as much as our times have on writers today. It's just being fair.]
I've suggested to Matt that we use his meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ for a Lenten series on the Son Rise Morning Show in February/March 2026, because Benson looks at them in "Part Three. Christ in His Historical Life", as "Christ Our Friend Crucified".
Best wishes for a Blessed Christmas to listeners of the Son Rise Morning Show!
*Westminster Abbey, St. Martin-in the-Fields (for Evensong), the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Saint Barnabas Jericho, and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford; St. Mary-St. Nicholas (the Anglican church Saint John Henry Newman built) in Littlemore, St. Katherine's in Chiselhampton (closed/redundant), and Dorchester Abbey in Dorchester-on-Thames.
**Saint John the Divine and Saint Thomas on Fifth Avenue
Image Credit: Public Domain: Edith Stein, student at Breslau (1913-1914).Image Credit/Attribution: Tridentine Mass celebrated by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter
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