Preview: "Christ in the Eucharist" on the Son Rise Morning Show

UPDATE: Postponed to January 5, 2026. We'll turn into an Advent/Christmas series and continue discussing other chapters through the month!

On Monday, December 22, we'll conclude our Advent Series (suggested by Anna Mitchell, who is on maternity leave from the Son Rise Morning Show!) when Matt Swaim and I discuss "Christ in the Eucharist", another chapter in Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ. I'll be on a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

The chapter on "Christ in the Eucharist" is the first chapter in "Part II: Christ in the Exterior" (with the verse, "I am the Bread of Life."--John 6:35) in Benson's book and he notes that while some aspects of the Christian's contact with the Friendship of Christ apply to all Christians, this is special to Catholics [and of course, Orthodox Christians]:

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! 

And these actions can have an impact, as the story of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) indicates: 

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.

Monsignor Benson then reminds us of the action on the Altar that brings the Presence to the Tabernacle:

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

Preview: "Christ in the Church" on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, December 15, we'll continue our discussion of selections from Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Matt Swaim a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central and we'll look at the chapter "Christ in the Church." Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

I selected this chapter to talk about because of this sentence:

When a convert begins his Catholic life, or when one who has been a Catholic from the cradle wakes to a deliberate consideration of what his religion means, it is enough to believe all that the Church expressly teaches, and to conform his life to that teaching: just as, in the first stage of a new acquaintanceship, it is enough to be polite and deferential and to refrain from offence.

When I talk to Matt Swaim, he is conversant, as a convert and as one working with converts in OCIA and The Coming Home Network, with the attitude of the convert. As a cradle Catholic, baptized as an infant and taught in Catholic schools in a religiously observant family, I know that I woke up "to a deliberate consideration" of what my Catholic religion means--and I know exactly when, in January of 1979, when I discovered Saint John Henry Newman and whole different, "adult" way of being a Catholic.

We must remember that Benson was speaking and writing for his British congregations in a country where Catholics were still a mistrusted minority in the early 20th century and therefore he speaks and writes to them so they can explain the Catholic way of understanding "the Friendship of Christ" as well as to understand it better themselves. Thus, he describes friendship with His Church as a necessary part of being friends with Christ, at first simply by accepting her teaching and order.

But Benson doesn't think that's enough; that's just the first step:

As the relationship deepens, it is absolutely necessary, if relations are not to be marred, to begin to conform not only words and actions, but thoughts; and even more than thoughts -- instincts and intuitions. Two really intimate friends know -- each of them, without a question or word of explanation -- what would be the judgment of the other upon a new situation. Each knows the likes and dislikes of the other, even though they may not be expressed in words.

Now this is precisely what a Catholic soul must aim at. If friendship with Christ in the Church is to be real -- and without this knowledge of Him, as has been seen, our relations with Him cannot be at all adequately what He intends -- it must extend not only to scrupulous external obedience and formulated acts of faith, but to an interior way of looking at things in general; an instinctive attitude; an intuitive atmosphere . . .

While Benson does not use exactly these words, he is echoing Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who urged his fellow Jesuits to “think and feel with the Church” and like Saint Joan of Arc, who replied to a question at her trial, "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter." Saint John Henry Newman, in an Anglican Parochial and Plain Sermon, "Unreal Words" reminds us that one "cannot frame a language for himself", and that while it's "not an easy thing to learn that new language which Christ has brought us . . . [we must] try to learn this language."

The Catholic Church's language of liturgy and liturgical seasons can be hard to learn: the changes in vestment colors, how the "Alleluia" and the "Gloria" and the Creed come and go depending on the season or the level of the feast, how the decorations in the church change. These are not unimportant elements of the language of our devotion and our being in rhythm with the liturgical year.

Benson acknowledges that those outside the Catholic Church can find this language too structured, but he notes that this is what makes a Catholic experience that interior friendship of Christ in the exterior:

Hence a certain "friendliness" with the Church is not difficult. No Catholic, for example, who even attempts to practise his religion, is ever altogether homeless or an exile. He feels, not only as a subject of a kingdom or an empire may feel, protected by his country's flag -- but as one who is in the society of a friend. He wanders into churches abroad, not only to visit the Blessed Sacrament, not only to reassure himself as to the hour for mass, but to get into the company of a mysterious and comforting Personality, driven by an instinct he can scarcely explain. He is perfectly reasonable in doing so; for Christ, his Friend, is there, present in that centre of humanity whose members are His.

During the seasons of Advent and Lent, with additional devotions and charitable efforts in our parishes, if you're active in your parish, you'll find yourself more there in church or in the parish hall than at other times of the year. And you go because it's another way to be in His Presence, praying Solemn Matins at 10 p.m. on the Vigil of the feast of the Immaculate Conception; listening to and joining in the Lessons and Carols; attending Penance services, Parish Missions, the Stations of the Cross on Fridays in Lent, and so on.

As Benson concludes:

Once grasp, therefore, that the Catholic Church is Christ's historical expression of Himself: once see in her Eyes the Divine glance, and through her face the Face of Christ Himself: once hear from her lips that Voice that speaks always "as one having authority";{12} and you will understand that no nobler life is possible for a human soul than to "lose herself"{13} this sense in that glorious Society which is His Body; no greater wisdom than to think with her; no purer love than that which burns in Her Heart who, with Christ as her Soul, is indeed the Saviour of the world.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: "Christ in the Saint" on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, we'll continue our Advent series on the Son Rise Morning Show with Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's reflections on "Christ in the Saint" from The Friendship of Christ.

I'll be on the air with Matt Swaim (Anna Mitchell is on maternity leave after the birth of her son) at my usual time about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central; please listen live here or catch the podcast later here. 

Since it is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8--a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics--we'll focus on Benson's comments about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, in this segment.

In the first section of The Friendship of Christ, Benson focuses on the interior relationship; in the second, on the exterior, with the argument that we want to respond to Jesus's desire to be our friend in every way that He reaches out to us:

We pass now to consider another avenue along which Christ approaches us and seeks our friendship; another mode, and, indeed, other gifts which He conveys to us. It is not enough to know Christ in one manner only: we are bound, if we desire to know Him on His own terms and not on ours, to recognize Him under every form which He chooses to use. It is not enough to say, "Interiorly He is my Friend, therefore I need nothing else." It is not loyal friendship to repudiate, for example, the Church or the Sacraments as unnecessary, without first inquiring whether or no He has instituted these things as ways through which He designs to approach us.

So Benson goes on to review several of those forms "He chooses to use" starting with The Eucharist, The Church, and The Priest before commenting on "Christ in the Saint". In that chapter he begins with Mary, the Mother of God as he examines how Christ is present to us in "Personal Holiness or Moral Sanctity":

I. When we examine the Catholic religion as it actually surrounds us, we find that the Saints, and, above all, Mary, Queen of Saints, are vital and essential elements in the system. It is certainly true to say that no person born of human parents has exercised and exercises such an influence on the human race as Mary, the Mother of our Lord -- or (to put it yet more gently) that no influence is ascribed to any such person as is ascribed to Mary.

As any student of art (East and West) and choral and classical music knows, Mary has inspired countless paintings, stained glass windows, icons, sculptures, hymns, chants, antiphons, poems, churches, cathedrals, etc., etc.:

It is impossible to grasp with the imagination what her Personality has meant to the human race -- as is illustrated by the countless services in her honour, the rosaries recited for her intercession and for her praise, the invocations of her name, -- in fact, the place she occupies as a whole in the human consciousness. Her name runs through Christian history as inextricably as the Holy Name of Jesus itself. There is not a circumstance in life, not a situation, not a crisis -- we might almost say, not a joy or sorrow -- in which, at one time or another, Mary has not been called to take a part.

. . . To the Catholic mind the thought of Mary is united with the thought of Jesus, as inextricably as the two natures in Christ; since, after all, one of those natures come from her.

 In response to those who object that Catholics are "worshipping" Mary as we worship Jesus, Benson replies:

It is unnecessary to answer this at any length, since every Catholic knows perfectly well that all the worship and honour given to Mary are given with the sole object of uniting the worshipper with that "blessed fruit of her womb,"{1} whom she extends to us in every image, whether as the Child of Joy or as the Man of Sorrows. It is only those who are doubtful, or at least doctrinally vague, as to the absolute Deity of Christ, who can conceive it even as possible for an intelligent Christian to confound Christ with His Mother, or to imagine the Creator and the Creature as standing even in the remotest competition one with the other.

Then he demonstrates how Mary is always with Jesus at crucial moments, from His Incarnation in her womb to the Cross:

First, then, when we turn to the Gospel -- that ground-plan of God's designs for mankind -- we find that, according to scale, so to speak, Mary occupies a place of dignity beside Jesus wonderfully proportionate to her place in the more explicit Catholic system; since, whenever Her Son comes to a moment of human crisis, whenever a new or startling and fundamental fact is to be revealed concerning Him, Mary is at His side, and is presented, so to speak, in a significant attitude.

Benson makes the comparison between Eve in the Garden of Eden and Mary in Nazareth: 

"The angel Gabriel was sent from God . . . to a virgin . . . and the virgin's name was Mary."{2} In such words the first actual step of the Incarnation itself is described, corresponding in an extraordinary manner to that first actual step in the process of the Fall. In both alike we see an Immaculate Maiden, a supernatural messenger, and a choice offered upon which the future shall depend. In the one case Eve's disobedience and love of self was preliminary to the sin by which the race fell; in the other, Mary's obedience and love of God was preliminary to the process by which the same race was redeemed.

Then Benson continues with more examples from the Gospels: 

Again -- as Christ lies in Bethlehem, receiving for the first time as God-made-man the adoration of mankind, it is Mary who kneels beside Him; as Christ through thirty years "learns obedience"{3} as the Son of Man, it is from Mary that He takes His orders. As He steps out into the world to begin that transformation of things common into things divine, it is at Mary's prayer that, in token of His Mission, He turns the water into wine. As He closes His ministry by that yet more amazing miracle to which all other of His signs pointed forward -- His own Death upon Calvary -- "there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother"{4} -- as, centuries before, Eve, the mother of the fallen, had stood by that Tree of Death by which the First Adam died. Whether then, we turn to Tradition -- that imperishable memory and mind of the Church from which she brings out continually "things new and old"{5} -- or to the written record of that Life during which her whole treasure was committed to her care; in either case we find alike that Mary walks always with Jesus -- that when we see Him as a new-born Child, we can only find Him "with Mary His Mother";{6} when we adore Him as man, obedient as He would have us obedient, it is in Her house that He lives; when we creep to the Cross to wash ourselves in His Precious Blood, Mary is looking at us from His side. For history too, tells us the same, that where Mary is loved, Jesus is adored; where Mary, the Mother of His Humanity, is despised or slighted, the light of His Divinity goes out. . . .

Benson concludes this chapter--without using the words--reflecting on the Communion of Saints:

Here, then, Christ comes to us, extending Himself in that Court of His friends who stand about His Throne. Upon His Right Hand stands the Queen in "gilded clothing," herself a" King's daughter";{10} and on every side, in their orders, those who have learned to call Him Friend, conceived and born in sin, yet who "through many tribulations"{11} have first restored and then retained that image in which they were made, and have so identified themselves with Christ that it is possible to say of them that although they live, it is "now not (they); but Christ that liveth in them."{12}

To seek to separate Christ from His friends, to banish the Queen Mother from the steps of Her Son's throne, lest she should receive too much love or homage -- this is a strange way to seek the Friendship of Him who is their All!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

All Holy Men and Women, pray for us!

Image of the Holy Family, Stained Glass from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Colwich, Kansas (C) Stephanie A. Mann 2016 and 2025

Image Credit (Public Domain): Immaculate Mary, Juan Sánchez Cotán (Compare to the cover image of the December issue of Magnificat by the same artist)

A "Son Rise Morning Show" Advent Series: Benson's "Friendship of Christ"

Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson didn't use the term "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ"; instead he refers to "The Friendship of Christ" in his 1912 book of the same title. He emphasizes that Jesus wants to be our friend; indeed He is Our Savior and Redeemer, Our Lord and Our God, AND in His human nature He wants to be our friend and for us to take Him as our friend. We'll begin an Advent series on the Son Rise Morning Show--Anna Mitchell is on maternity leave--on December 1 as Matt Swaim and I look at this collection of sermons. I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central; please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

There are several editions of this book available and because it's out of copyright, it's also readily available on line. I have an older Scepter edition.

The book is in three parts: I) Christ in the Interior Soul (including a general overview of "the Friendship of Christ and chapters on the Purgative and Illuminative Way); II) Christ in the Exterior (seven chapters) and III) Christ in His Historical Life (Good Friday meditations on the Seven Last Words and an Easter Sunday sermon on "Christ Our Friend Vindicated). In this Advent series, we'll start with the General overview on December 1 and discuss some highlights from section two, especially "Christ in the Saint" for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.

The book begins with a poem:

THIS IS MY FRIEND

From an old manuscript.

Let me tell you how I made His acquaintance.
I had heard much of Him, but took no heed.
He sent daily gifts and presents, but I never thanked Him.
He often seemed to want my friendship, but I remained cold.
I was homeless, and wretched, and starving and in peril every hour; and He offered me shelter and comfort and food and safety; but I was ungrateful still.
At last He crossed my path and with tears in His eyes He besought me saying, Come and abide with me.

Let me tell you how he treats me now.
He supplies all my wants.
He gives me more than I dare ask.
He anticipates my every need.
He begs me to ask for more.
He never reminds me of my past ingratitude.
He never rebukes me for my past follies.

Let me tell you further what I think of Him.
He is as good as He is great.
His love is as ardent as it is true.
He is as lavish of His promises as He is faithful in keeping them.
He is as jealous of my love as He is deserving of it.
I am in all things His debtor, but He bids me call Him Friend.

The last line seems the key to Benson's argument in the first chapter with the General overview of the Friendship of Christ, using Genesis 2:18 as the starting point "It is not good for man to be alone.":

THE emotion of friendship is amongst the most mighty and the most mysterious of human instincts. Materialistic philosophers delight in tracing even the most exalted emotions -- art, religion, romance -- to purely carnal sources; to the instincts of the propagation or sustentation of physical life; and yet in this single experience at any rate -- when we class together, as we can, all those varied relationships between men and men, women and women, as well as between men and women, under the common title of friendship -- materialistic philosophy wholly breaks down. It is not a manifestation of sex, for David can cry to Jonathan "Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women"; it is not a sympathy arising from common interests, for the sage and the fool can form a friendship at least as strong as any between two sages or two fools; it is not a relationship based on the exchange of ideas, for the deepest friendships thrive better in silence than in speech. "No man is truly my friend," says Maeterlinck, "until we have each learned to be silent in one another's company."

Benson notes that friends can hurt us more than others because of the love and loyalty we share with them; when those friendships fail (and even when they succeed), however, that points to our one true Friend, Jesus Christ:

There is but one intelligible explanation then for the desires which it generates yet never fulfils; there is but one supreme friendship to which all human friendships point; one Ideal Friend in whom we find perfect and complete that for which we look in type and shadow in the faces of our human lovers.

Benson suggests that Catholics can rely too much on their own efforts in practicing their faith and miss this fulfillment of the friendship and companionship they crave:

They pray, they frequent the sacraments, they do their utmost to fulfil the Christian precepts; and, when all is done, they find themselves solitary. They adore Christ as God, they feed on Him in Communion, cleanse themselves in His precious Blood, look to the time when they shall see Him as their Judge; yet of that intimate knowledge of and companionship with Him in which the Divine Friendship consists, they have experienced little or nothing. They long, they say, for one who can stand by their side and upon their own level, who can not merely remove suffering, but can himself suffer with them, one to whom they can express in silence the thoughts which no speech can utter; and they seem not to understand that this is the very post which Jesus Christ Himself desires to win, that the supreme longing of His Sacred Heart is that He should be admitted, not merely to the throne of the heart or to the tribunal of conscience, but to that inner secret chamber of the soul where a man is most himself, and therefore most utterly alone.

James Tissot (1836-1902), “Jesus in Bethany”

"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus." (John 11:5)

Benson cites various examples from the Gospels to prove that Jesus wanted friends during His time with us: John 11:5; Mark 10:21; Matthew 26:41, 28:20, etc. These examples, Benson writes, demonstrate that this remains true now:

If then there is anything clear in the Gospels it is this -- that Jesus Christ first and foremost desires our friendship. It is His reproach to the world, not that the Saviour came to the lost, and that the lost ran from Him to lose themselves more deeply, not that the Creator came to the Creature and that the Creature rejected Him; but that the Friend "came unto His own, and that His own received Him not." (John 1:11)

While we can use the model of human friendship to some extent, the Friendship of Christ is something much greater:

Now it must be remembered that while this friendship between Christ and the soul is, from one point of view, perfectly comparable to friendship between man and man, from another point of view it is incomparable. Certainly it is a friendship between His Soul and ours; but that Soul of His is united to Divinity. A single individualistic friendship with Him therefore does not exhaust His capacities. He is Man, but He is not merely A Man: He is The Son, rather than A Son of man. He is the Eternal Word by whom all things were made and are sustained. . . .

He approaches us therefore along countless avenues, although it is the same Figure that advances down each. It is not enough to know Him interiorly only: He must be known (if His relation with us is to be that which He desires) in all those activities and manifestations in which He displays Himself.

And Benson concludes this introduction:

Let us then consider the Friendship of Christ under some of these aspects. Truly we cannot live without Him, for He is the Life. It is impossible to come to the Father except by Him who is the Way. It is useless to toil in pursuit of truth, unless we first possess It. Even the most sacred experiences of life are barren unless His Friendship sanctifies them. The holiest love is obscure except it burns in His shadow. The purest affection -- that affection that unites my dearest friend to myself -- is a counterfeit and an usurper unless I love my friend in Christ -- unless He, the Ideal and Absolute Friend, is the personal bond that unites us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, be to me a Jesus! 

Preview: "Shrinking from Christ's Coming" on the SRMS

Before we enter the final liturgical preparations for the Coming of Jesus as an infant in Bethlehem, the Church has us thinking about Our Lord's Second Coming. Saint John Henry Newman reflected on this theme in one of his Advent Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Shrinking from Christ's Coming" and that will be our subject on Monday, December 16 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

(The hosts will take a well-deserved Christmas/New Year break the weeks of December 23 and 30, and we'll continue this Newman Advent/Christmas series on January 6, 2025).

But on Monday, December 16, I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached a famous Advent sermon commenting on the Three Comings of Christ: 

In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among men; he himself testifies that they saw him and hated him. In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.This middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last. At the first, Christ was our redemption; at the last, he will become manifest as our life; but in this middle way he is our rest and our consolation.

I have often heard Advent sermons in which the priest commented on that "intermediate coming" in different ways: comparing it to when each of us dies and sees Jesus in our particular judgment, or in the way that Saint Bernard did, as the indwelling of the Spirit of God (discussed as an influence of the Greek Fathers on Newman in a recent series), or as when we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in Holy Communion.

In this Advent PPS, Newman speaks of both that intermediate coming now and the Second Coming to come and describes how we should pray for those comings with both hopefulness and awe. The verse for this sermon is "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." Isaiah 33:17 and Newman begins with the Old Testament prophecies:

BEFORE Christ came, the faithful remnant of Israel were consoled with the promise that "their eyes should see" Him, who was to be their salvation. "For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings" (Malachi 4:2). Yet it is observable that the prophecy, though cheering and encouraging, had with it something of an awful character too. First, it was said, "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight." Yet it is soon added, "But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." (Malachi 3:1-2)

Reading those verses from Malachi immediately makes me think of Handel's Messiah (without the soap).

Newman then turns from those Old Testament prophecies to Christians now praying and waiting for Christ to return and asks: can any of us think that we are ready if He comes sooner rather than later? Are we ready for judgement?

We too are looking out for Christ's coming,—we are bid look out,—we are bid pray for it; and yet it is to be a time of judgment. It is to be the deliverance of all Saints from sin and sorrow for ever; yet they, every one of them, must undergo an awful trial. How then can any look forward to it with joy, not knowing (for no one knows) the certainty of his own salvation? And the difficulty is increased when we come to pray for it,—to pray for its coming soon: how can we pray that Christ would come, that the day of judgment would hasten, that His kingdom would come, that His kingdom may be at once,—may come on us this day or tomorrow,—when by so coming He would be shortening the time of our present life, and cut off those precious years given us for conversion, amendment, repentance and sanctification? Is there not an inconsistency in professing to wish our Judge already come, when we do not feel ourselves ready for Him? In what sense can we really and heartily pray that He would cut short the time, when our conscience tells us that, even were our life longest, we should have much to do in a few years?

And yet he reminds his congregation that while we are aware of our sinfulness and unworthiness, not just when we think about His Second Coming but whenever we pray, because, as he states "I am in myself nothing but a sinner, a man of unclean lips and earthly heart. I am not worthy to enter into His presence. I am not worthy of the least of all His mercies. I know He is All-holy, yet I come before Him .  . ." There is no one else we can go to, he says, and we have to rely on God's mercy: we know that "He is All-merciful, and that He so sincerely desires my salvation that He has died for me."

Newman offers consolation to one afraid of judgement because of her sin:

And yet there is a certain composure and dignity which become us who are born of immortal seed, when we come before our Father. If indeed we have habitually lived to the world, then truly it is natural we should attempt to fly from Him whom we have pierced. Then may we well call on the mountains to fall on us, and on the hills to cover us. But if we have lived, however imperfectly, yet habitually, in His fear, if we trust that His Spirit is in us, then we need not be ashamed before Him. We shall then come before Him, as now we come to pray—with profound abasement, with awe, with self-renunciation, still as relying upon the Spirit which He has given us, with our faculties about us, with a collected and determined mind, and with hope. He who cannot pray for Christ's coming, ought not in consistency to pray at all.

Newman does not think that we are all "sinners in the hands of an angry God"!

Finally, Newman brings up the Anglican sacrament of Holy Communion, in which he believed there was a Real Presence of Jesus (we discussed his sermon "The Eucharistic Presence" in April this year):

I have spoken of coming to God in prayer generally; but if this is awful, much more is coming to Him in the Sacrament of Holy Communion; for this is in very form an anticipation of His coming, a near presence of Him in earnest of it. They indeed who are in the religious practice of communicating, understand well enough how it is possible to feel afraid and yet to come. Surely it is possible, and the case is the same as regards the future day of Christ. You must tremble, and yet pray for it. . . . Such is the temper in which we desire to come to the Lord's table; such in which we must pray for His coming; such in which His elect will stand before Him when He comes.

Since the pontificate of Pope Saint Pius X we the laity have been encouraged to receive Holy Communion more often, even daily at Mass, but we are also encouraged to examine our consciences and prepare ourselves with Confession if we have committed Mortal Sin before receiving the Eucharist, and of course to fast and pray.  I appreciate Newman's warning not to take this privilege for granted or thoughtlessly.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Newman on "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son"

For our first discussion of an Advent/Christmas sermon by Saint John Henry Newman, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on Monday, December 9! This feast has been transferred from its usual date, December 8 since it falls on the Second Sunday of Advent this year. It is still a Holy day of Obligation (or of Opportunity!) in most dioceses of the USA. 

I'll be on the air at my usual time! about 7:50 a.m. Eastern Time/6:50 a.m. Central Time. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later.

The Catholic sermon we'll reflect on "The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son" was published in Newman's Discourses to Mixed Congregations in 1849, about five years before Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception to be official Catholic Church teaching: 

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful. Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854

We are using the excerpt from this longer sermon as it appears in Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Christmas and Advent, edited by Christopher O. Blum.

Newman begins his discourse with the bold statement: "that the glories of Mary are for the sake of Jesus; and that we praise and bless her as the first of creatures, [so] that we may confess Him as our sole Creator."

Then this disciple of Saint Athanasius of Alexandra proclaims the Mystery of the Incarnation and how difficult it really is for us to wrap our minds around it and really believe it: "When the Eternal Word decreed to come on earth, He did not purpose, He did not work, by halves; but He came to be a man like any of us, to take a human soul and body, and to make them His own."

But when we consider not just that the Second Person of the Trinity was Incarnate as a man but how He came to us as man, we discover the mysterious historical reality: the Son of God is also the Son of Mary:

The world allows that God is man; the admission costs it little, for God is everywhere, and (as it may say) is everything; but it shrinks from confessing that God is the Son of Mary. It shrinks, for it is at once confronted with a severe fact, which violates and shatters its own unbelieving view of things; the revealed doctrine forthwith takes its true shape, and receives an historical reality; and the Almighty is introduced into His own world at a certain time and in a definite way. Dreams are broken and shadows depart; the Divine truth is no longer a poetical expression, or a devotional exaggeration, or a mystical economy, or a mythical representation. 

Newman quotes both the Letter to the Hebrews and the First Letter of St. John the Apostle to demonstrate the particular bodily reality of the Incarnation: 

"Sacrifice and offering," the shadows of the Law, "you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5). "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have diligently looked upon, and our hands have handled," (1 John 1:1), such is the record of the Apostle, in opposition to those who denied that "Jesus Christ had appeared in the flesh" (1 John 4:2).

Declaring that Mary is the Mother of God, the Theotokos, is a key to the reality of the Incarnation:

And the confession that Mary is the Mother of God is that safeguard wherewith we seal up and secure the doctrine of the Apostle from all evasion. It declares that He is God; it implies that He is man; it suggests to us that He is God still, though He has become man, and that He is true man though He is God. By witnessing to the process of the union, it secures the reality of the two subjects of the union, of the divinity and of the manhood. If Mary is the Mother of God, Christ must be literally Emmanuel, God with us.

From this mysterious reality, Newman declares, all the glories accorded to Mary, including her freedom from sin from the moment of her conception, are fitting, for "the sake of Jesus", her Son because:

If she is to witness and remind the world that God became man, she must be on a high and eminent station for the purpose. She must be made to fill the mind, in order to suggest the lesson. When she once attracts our attention, then, and not till then, she begins to preach Jesus. "Why should she have such prerogatives," we ask, "unless He be God? and what must He be by nature, when she is so high by grace?" This is why she has other prerogatives besides, namely, the gifts of personal purity and intercessory power, distinct from her maternity; she is personally endowed that she may perform her office well; she is exalted in herself that she may minister to Christ. 

Then Newman rehearses the defense of the the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception he would make in reply to E.B. Pusey in 1866: Mary is the Second Eve (as Jesus is the Second Adam); she would have the same privileges as Eve, the "mother of all the living" as Adam named her:

It was fitting that she should triumph, where Eve had failed, and should "bruise the serpent's head" by the spotlessness of her sanctity. In some respects, indeed, the curse was not reversed; Mary came into a fallen world, and resigned herself to its laws; she, as also the Son she bore, was exposed to pain of soul and body, she was subjected to death. 

But she was not put under the power of sin. As grace was infused into Adam from the first moment of his creation, so that he never had experience of his natural poverty, till sin reduced him to it; so was grace given from the first in still ampler measure to Mary, and she never incurred, in fact, Adam's deprivation. She began where others end, whether in knowledge or in love. She was from the first clothed in sanctity, destined for perseverance, luminous and glorious in God's sight, and incessantly employed in meritorious acts, which continued till her last breath. 

Hers was emphatically "the path of the righteous," which is "like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day" (Proverbs 4:18), and, sinlessness in thought, word, and deed, in small things as well as great, in venial matters as well as grievous, is surely but the natural and obvious sequel of such a beginning. If Adam might have kept himself from sin in his first state [or Eve hers!], much more shall we expect immaculate perfection in Mary. 

Such is her prerogative of sinless perfection, and it is, as her maternity, for the sake of Emmanuel.             

No wonder then that we ask the Mother of God to intercede for us:

If we have faith to admit the Incarnation itself, we must admit it in its fulness; why then should we be startled at the gracious appointments which arise out of it, or are necessary to it, or are included in it? If the Creator comes on earth in the form of a servant and a creature, why may not His Mother, on the other hand, rise to be the Queen of heaven, and be clothed with the sun, and have the moon under her feet?

For the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12, Blum has excerpted a similar sermon from the the Discourses to Mixed Congregations, "On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary."

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

This Morning: Houselander's Advent Patience

Just a reminder that I'm starting an Advent Series based on the spirituality of Caryll Houselander on the Son Rise Morning Show today at 6:45 a.m. Central/7:45 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here on the Sacred Heart Radio website. 

In another of the excerpts chosen for the first week of Advent, Houselander drives home her anti-Pelagian theme that we aren't the ones making our own spiritual progress. She notes that whatever good we do for others "we shall not [or should not!] do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation." We should not allow ourselves to think "that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind."

Instead, she encourages us to "let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world" even as Jesus patiently developed in His mother's womb.

Houselander's emphasis on Jesus in Mary's womb reminds me of the depictions of the Visitation, with St. John the Baptist in St. Elizabeth's womb, leaping, as he recognizes Jesus in His Mother's womb, like this icon.

Preview: Advent with Caryll Houselander on the Son Rise Morning Show

Based on a collection of excerpts from Caryll Houselander's works, Matt Swaim, Anna Mitchell, and I will discuss Advent themes starting Monday, November 30 (which is also St. Andrew's feast day). I'll be on at my usual time (7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central) on Sacred Heart Radio, and I'm sure they'll repeat each segment later in the week during the EWTN national broadcast hour. On Monday, you may listen--unless you're in the broadcast area of Sacred Heart Radio--online here.

Caryll Houselander (September 29, 1901-October 12, 1954) was a convert to Catholicism when she was a child, baptized after her mother became a Catholic. She could also be called a "Revert" because she left the practice of the Catholic Faith and explored other spiritualities, including Buddhism, before returning to the Church. Her parents divorced when she was nine and Houselander had a difficult childhood and was often ill, but also began to have mystical experiences as a young girl, as this article explains:

Among the sisters at the school, there was one German nun who spoke very little English and who was isolated from family and friends after World War I began. Houselander recalled coming upon her one day as she was polishing shoes. Tears running down her face, Houselander noticed her hands “were folded in a way that expressed inconsolable grief.”

She continued, “We were both quite silent and I stare down at her beautiful hands, afraid to look up and then – I saw – the nun crowned with the Crown of Thorns. I shall not attempt to explain this. I am simply telling the thing as I saw it. That bowed head was weighed under the Crown of Thorns.”

“I stood for – I suppose – a few seconds, dumbfounded and then, finding my tongue, I said to her, ‘I would not cry, if I was wearing the crown of thorns, like you are.’ She looked at me as if she were startled, and asked, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and at the time I did not. I sat down beside her and together we polished the shoes,” Houselander recounted.

She also had a vision of the last Romanov Czar being murdered (when she was interested in Russian Orthodoxy). But the most important vision was seeing Christ in each person she encountered:

Houselander recalled traveling from work on an underground train with every manner of man headed home from the day’s work, writing: “Quite suddenly, I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them – but because he was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here in this underground train, not only the world as it was at that moment, not only at the people in the countries of the world, but all those yet to come. I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passerby – Christ.”

These visions are part of what informs her spiritual writing, which became very popular during World War II as she helped Catholics and other Christians understand the suffering they were enduring. She's been compared to Julian of Norwich and there's also an element of St. Therese of Lisieux's Little Way in her writing as she emphasizes the spirituality of daily tasks and work.  Houselander is also practical and common-sensical, offering spiritual advice for those who don't have visions. She was a prolific writer in the 1940's and some of  her works were republished in the late 20th and early 21st century.

In these Advent writings, selected and excerpted from The Reed of God (about the Blessed Virgin Mary), The Passion of the Infant Christ, The Risen Christ, and The Comforting of Christ, her emphasis on silence, simplicity, seeing the depths of God's love for us in everyday things, and patience, make them an excellent way to slow down and wait for Christmas to come to us. Thomas Hoffman has chosen several passages that focus on the Mother of God's patiently waiting for the development of the Savior in her womb and the fulfillment of the promises made to her and her people.

As others have said before, Christmas does not begin on Black Friday and end on December 25. The time of Advent, which once was a time of fasting and penance in the Roman/Western Catholic Church--and still is in the Eastern Rite Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches--at least should still be a time of stillness and waiting. So put off the Christmas parties and carols, chant the O Antiphons during the last week of Advent, and wait for Season of Christmas, beginning on December 24!

In the meditations selected for the first week of Advent, Hoffman chose one for the first Sunday of Advent from The Reed of God that emphasizes patience:

There is great virtue in practicing patience in small things until the habit of Advent returns to us. . . . 

This habit of Advent may be part of the rhythm of our life, she says, or be immediately present as a "result of conversion or of a new awareness of God or of an increase of love". Or it can be painful as we want to start right off and find it difficult. Houselander offers the example of the Mother of God for our imitation:

In her the Word of God chose to be silent for the season measured by God. She, too, was silent; in her the Light of the world shone in darkness.

So it may take us some time--especially after all the celebrations of Thanksgiving Day and the holiday weekend after it--to get into the Advent spirit. Houselander reassures us that we need to let God help us into this habit and spirit.

In the Thursday meditation from The Passion of the Infant Christ, she offers the image of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary--she was not in control of how the unborn Son of God Incarnate developed--encouraging us to allow Him "to rest in us" and "wait patiently on His own timing of His growth in us" so that "we are formed into Him."

I think she's reminding us that we are not in charge of our own spiritual growth. We need to cooperate with the gifts of grace that God gives us, but we need to be careful of thinking that we can force an Advent spirit upon ourselves. Thus she encourages patience and silence.