Preview: "Christ in the Average Man"--Part One--on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, January 26, we'll look at the next chapter in The Friendship of Christ, "Christ in the Average Man" on the Son Rise Morning Show, at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or later on the podcast here.

Before I began reading this chapter from Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ, I searched on line for a definition of "the average man" and the results were focused on height and weight! Not very helpful! 

Instead I decided to focus on what Benson means by "the average man", because of course he is looking at how Jesus helps us understand and love the average man--our neighbor--because he (or she) represents Him in our daily lives:

WE have seen that it is comparatively easy to recognize Christ in the Priest and the Saint. In the Priest He sacrifices; in the Saint He is transfigured -- or, rather, transfigures humanity once more with His own glory. And the only difficulty in recognizing Christ in the Sinner is the same as that which makes it hard to see Him in the Crucifix -- a difficulty which, when once surmounted, becomes luminous with the light which it sheds upon the Divine Character. We have seen, too, that those who do not see Christ in these types of humanity lose incalculable opportunities of approaching Him and of apprehending the fullness and variety of that Friendship which He extends to us. But Christ has even more strange disguises than any of these; and that which is perhaps more strange than all is that which He indicates to us when He tells us that not merely this or that man in particular, but the "average man" -- our "neighbour" -- is His representative and Vicar on earth as fully (though in wholly another sense) as Priest or Pontiff.

And once I read the rest of the chapter I realized we could barely cover the highlights of the chapter in the time we have, so we'll have two segments for this chapter; that way we have a fighting chance! 

In part one, we have Benson's explication of the great Judgment parable in Matthew 25: 31-46, in which the Son of Man, coming in His Glory, judges and divides the Sheep from the Goats:

On the one hand, He tells us, stand the saved; and on the other the lost; and the only reason He actually assigns, in this particular discourse, for that eternal separation between the two companies, is that those in the first have ministered to Him in their neighbour; and those in the second failed so to minister. "As long as you did it, or did it not, to one of these my least brethren, you did it, or did it not, to me." These then enter into life; and those into death.

Immediately we are puzzled by the apparent ignorance -- it would seem genuine and sincere ignorance -- of both one class and the other as to the merit or demerit of their lives. Both alike deprecate the sentence of acquittal and condemnation respectively: "Lord, when did we see thee hungry, . . . or thirsty, . . . or naked . . . or sick or in prison?" . . . "We have never knowingly served Thee," say the one. "We have never knowingly neglected Thee," say the other. In answer our Lord repeats the fact that in serving or neglecting their neighbours, they have, respectively, served or neglected Himself. Yet He does not explain how actions done in ignorance can either merit or demerit in His sight.

Benson says it's not that hard to figure out:

It is that the ignorance is not complete. For it is an universal fact of experience that we all feel an instinctive drawing towards our neighbour which we cannot reject without a sense of moral guilt. It may be that owing to ignorance or willful rejection of light a man may fail to understand or believe the Fatherhood of God and the claims of Jesus Christ; it may even be that he sincerely believes himself justified intellectually in explicitly denying those truths; but no man ever yet has lived a wholly selfish life from the beginning, no man has ever yet deliberately refused to love his neighbour or to deny the Brotherhood of man, without a consciousness, at some period at least, that he is outraging his highest instincts.

He offers an explanation of the issue at hand, using another Gospel passage on the Two Greatest Commandments and then follows it up with an example:

It is actually the Voice of the Eternal Word, although His Name and His historical actions may be unknown, that pleads in the voice of conscience. In rejecting, therefore, the claims of his neighbour, a man is rejecting the claims of the Son of Man. . . . Pilate was not condemned for not knowing the articles of the Nicene Creed, and for not identifying the Prisoner brought before him: he was condemned because he rejected the claims of justice and of the right of an innocent man to be acquitted. He outraged Incarnate Truth because he outraged Justice.

No wonder as Francis Bacon famously wrote: "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." He had Truth standing in front of him; he knew how he should judge; but he "outraged Justice" by letting the mob pass the sentence. (James Tissot's "Ecce Homo")

Here then is an undeniable fact. The man who does not keep the Second Commandment cannot even implicitly be keeping the First: the man who rejects Christ in man cannot accept Christ in God. "He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?"{3}

Benson concludes our part one discussion of this chapter with phrases from the Breastplate of Saint Patrick:

"Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me". . . (as well as in the heart of every man who never gives me a thought). "Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me. Christ in every eye that sees me. Christ in every ear that hears me."{5}

Then he offers some rather quaint examples, we might think:

The husband, for example, has to see Christ in the frivolous wife who spends half her fortune and all her energies in the emptiest social ambition. The wife has to see Christ in the husband who has no idea in the world beyond his business on weekdays and his recreation on Sunday. The middle-aged woman living at home has to find Christ in her garrulous parents and her domestic duties: and her parents have to find Christ in their unimaginative and unattractive daughter.

Next Friday (1/30) and the following Monday (2/2) we'll look at Benson's advice on how to practice this aspect of the Friendship of Christ in the Average Man, which is the way to holiness (to being sheep)--and he warns that there is no shortcut. 

Top illustration: Sixth century mosaic of the separation of the sheep from the goats. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Best Books of 2025: "Generalissima"--Queen Henrietta Maria and the English Civil War!

This is the second volume in a trilogy of historical novels about Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I; mother of Kings Charles II and James II and therefore grandmother of the Old Pretender and great-grandmother of the Young Pretender and the Cardinal Pretender. 

In this book the author traces the lives of the Queen and her family from 1640 to 1644, from the Royal palaces of Saint James, Wimbledon, Whitehall, Hampton Court, to The Hague in the Netherlands, the battlefields of the English Civil War, through betrayals--especially by Lucy Fairfax, one of her ladies-in-waiting--and attacks on Henriette (as she is called throughout the book) because she is a Catholic; storms and battles at sea, the death of her mother, pregnancies, separations, her efforts and love for her husband and her disappointments that he has not always fulfilled the promises of their marriage contract, times in York, Oxford, Cornwall, and France!

Throughout all these conflicts, dangers, and adventures, Vidal's narration, use of dialogue, and description are vivid, personal, and often poignant.

The publisher's blurb:

As the Three Kingdoms totter on the brink of anarchy, Henriette-Marie, queen of Charles I, strives to bring up their lively, growing family. In addition to her own health problems, she worries about the welfare of her mother the Dowager Queen of France, who sought refuge in London only to find herself under attack. As Henriette faces choices which may separate herself from her beloved husband and children, she seeks help from the Pope and the Irish Catholics. Meanwhile, Henriette's spy, Wat Montagu, informs her that there is a traitor within the royal household. Determined to save the throne, Henriette eventually decides to sell her jewels in order to raise an army. In spite of storms and near shipwreck as well as the attempts of her enemies to kill her, Henriette is able to return to her husband's side with an army, earning for herself the moniker of "Generalissima."

And my blurb for the book, written after reading the book in manuscript:

“From the first words of the Prologue, you're there with the Royal Family in the picture Gallery. Limned by a great historical novelist, each episode in this second volume of Vidal's ‘Henrietta of France Trilogy’ develops the characters and explores the challenges they face with vivid description and riveting action. Vidal depicts Queen Henrietta Maria's love and loyalty to her husband King Charles I and her family in the throes of the English Civil War sympathetically and realistically. Volume Three can't appear soon enough! —Stephanie A. Mann, blogger and author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation

I appreciated Vidal's focus on James, the Duke of York in a couple of scenes; the author assured me that he will certainly be featured in the third volume of this work. I think a novel about his life would be wonderful from the pen of this author!

Please note again, that I was asked to blurb the book, and that I received a copy of the book. The author and I have been acquainted since my book was published, and we met at the Catholic Writers Guild Live Conference in 2010. I appreciate her craft and historical acumen.

"Christ in the Sinner" Addendum

I've been reading a book by Charles Scribner III, Home by Another Route: A Journal of Art, Music, and Faith (Paulist Press, 2016). It's a journal from the Epiphany of 2005 to the Epiphany of 2006, with seasonal entries with details of Masses attended, presentations made, and various trips, including a visit to Elizabeth Schwarzkopf in Austria six months before her death on August 3, 2006.

In the Eastertide of 2005, Scribner is an alternate on a murder trial and he remarks on a witness to the death of the victim, a heroin dealer, who had been "dealing and was shot in the head outside a schoolyard."

He describes the testimony of a Hispanic woman who described her encounter with the victim when she came out of the school and

saw the staggering victim calling for help, she rushed over to him; he collapsed on top of her; she called for 911, then cradled his bleeding head in her lap until the medics arrived. (p. 67)

Scribner--an art historian in addition to being a publisher--imagines "a Caravaggio Pieta* as it might have been painted in the lower east side of our island across the Atlantic, four centuries later." As he summarizes the effect of her testimony, he notes that the witness "relived her simple act of charity to a dying man."

Objectively, the victim was a sinner (he was dealing heroin), but she didn't know that, she just knew he needed her. She even went to the hospital and stayed with his family and attended the funeral! As Scribner sums it up:

She knew nothing of the victim's background or street business; he was simply a wounded soul in dire need of compassion; she gave it in abundance. (p. 68)

I read this passage in Adoration before Mass on Friday and thought how it echoed in a way Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's meditation on "Christ in the Sinner": We have to do, on the level of our own capacities, something of what Christ did in His Omnipotent love -- identify ourselves with the sinner, penetrate through his lovelessness and his darkness down to the love and light of Christ Who has not yet wholly left him to himself. We have, in a word, to make the best of him and not the worst (as our Lord does for ourselves every time He forgives us our sins), to forgive his trespasses as we hope that God will forgive our own. To recognize Christ in the sinner is not only to Christ's service, but to the sinner's as well.

*Caravaggio did not paint a Pieta that we know of. 

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

Before I realized that we'd continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ into January, we looked at his chapter on "Christ in the Saint" on December 8; on Monday, January 19th, we'll discuss the next chapter, "Christ in the Sinner" in the section titled "Christ in the Exterior", at my usual time, a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Benson prefaces this chapter with the verse, "This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." -- Luke 15:2. He posits that this is a challenging idea for us--how can Jesus Christ, who "knew no sin"(2 Corinthians 5:21) be "in the sinner"?

But as he points out, Jesus ate and drank with sinners--as after the conversion of Matthew (portrayed above by James Tissot)--and spoke of sinners in surprising ways:

. . . it is clear that among His most marked characteristics, as recorded in the Gospels, were His Friendship for sinners, His extraordinary sympathy for them, and His apparent ease in their company. It was, in fact, for this very thing that fault was found with Him, who claimed, as He did, to teach a doctrine of perfection. And yet, if we think of it, this characteristic of His is one of His supreme credentials for His Divinity; since none but the Highest could condescend so low -- none but God would be so human. On the one side there is no patronage as from a superior height -- "This man receiveth sinners."{2} He is not content to preach to them: He "eateth with them" as if on their level. And, on the other, not a taint of the silly modern pose of unmorality: His final message is always, "Go, and now sin no more."{3}

So emphatic, indeed, is His Friendship for sinners that it seems, superficially, as if comparatively He cared but little for the saints. "I am not come to call the just," He says, "but sinners."{4} Three times over in a single discourse He drives this lesson home to souls that are naturally prejudiced the other way -- since the chief danger of religious souls lies in Pharisaism -- in three tremendous parables.{5} The piece of silver lost in the house is declared more precious than the nine pieces in the money-box: the single willful sheep lost in the wilderness more valuable than the ninety-nine in the fold: the rebellious son lost in the world more dear than the elder, and the heir, safe at home. [Tissot's painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son]

See, too, how He acted on what He said. It is not merely a vague benevolence that He practises towards sinners in the abstract; but a particular kindness towards sinners in the concrete.

Benson finds a lesson in these examples: "We cannot know Christ in His most characteristic aspect until we find Him among the Sinners." 

Now this recognition of Christ in the Sinner is the single essential to our capacity for helping the sinner. We must believe in his possibilities. And his only "possibility" is Christ. We have to recognize, that is to say, that beneath his apparent absence of faith there is still, at any rate, a spark of hope; beneath his hopelessness, at least a glimmer of charity. Mere pleading and rebuke are worse than useless. We have to do, on the level of our own capacities, something of what Christ did in His Omnipotent love -- identify ourselves with the sinner, penetrate through his lovelessness and his darkness down to the love and light of Christ Who has not yet wholly left him to himself. We have, in a word, to make the best of him and not the worst (as our Lord does for ourselves every time He forgives us our sins), to forgive his trespasses as we hope that God will forgive our own. To recognize Christ in the sinner is not only to Christ's service, but to the sinner's as well.

To fail to recognize Christ, therefore, in the sinner is to fail to recognize Christ when He is most fully and characteristically Himself. All the devotion in the world to the White Host in the monstrance; all the adoration in the world to the Stainless Child in the arms of His Stainless Mother -- all this fails utterly to attain to its true end, unless there accompanies it a passion for the souls of those who dishonour Him, since, beneath all the filth and the corruption of their sins, He who is in the Blessed Sacrament and the Crib dwells here also, and cries to us for help.

The laity must be prepared to hope for a sinner's conversion, to forgive a sinner if he or she offends us, and to "make the best of him and not the worst." We certainly don't want "to hug ourselves in our own religion, to leave sinners to themselves, to draw the curtains close, to make small cynical remarks, and to forget that a failure to recognize the claim of the heathen and the publican is a failure to recognize the Lord whom we profess to serve, under the disguise in which He most urgently desires our friendship". 

In his day, Benson suggested the laity should "support, let us say, Rescue Societies, or guilds for the conversion of the heathen," but now I think we have wider opportunities: post-abortion counseling, programs for prison ministry, etc.

And Benson offers a final poignant admonition:

Lastly, it is necessary to remember that if we are to have pity on Christ in the Sinner, we must therefore have pity on Christ in ourself. . . .

Since Robert Bridges did not publish the poetry of Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, until 1918, when Benson wrote The Friendship of Christ (published in 1912) he wouldn't have known of Hopkins' poem, "My Own Heart Let Me Have Pity On":

My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.

Best Books of 2025: MOZART BEETHOVEN SCHUBERT by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Please note that I purchased this book, published by the Hildebrand Project:

This extraordinary volume presents Dietrich von Hildebrand, one of the preeminent aesthetic philosophers of the twentieth century, in a mode unlike any of his other published works. Neither philosophy nor theology, neither biography nor personal appreciation, these essays achieve something rarer: capturing the true spirit of the music itself.

Hildebrand approaches the great composers with loving openness—the only stance, he argues, through which beauty fully reveals itself. He shows us Mozart’s radiant happiness, Beethoven’s victorious joy, and Schubert’s mysterious power, not through analysis but through reverent attention. The result is a book of profound insight and joyful discovery.

The three chapters dedicated to Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert were published in one book; the Additional Writings on Music, including on Sacred Music (Bach's St. Matthew Passion and his Christmas Oratorio), Beethoven's Fidelio, Richard Wagner's music dramas, selections from an unpublished essay on Wagner, and Verdi's music drama (Otello and Falstaff) are from other sources.

In the chapter on Mozart, he focuses on Mozart's operas: two of his singspiel, The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) and The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), and the three da Ponte operas, Cosi fan Tutti, Don Giovanni, and Le Nozze di Figaro. I was surprised that von Hildebrand did not mention either Idomeneo or La Clemenza di Tito, two of his opera seria but perhaps they weren't performed in Germany or Austria at his time. (When Idomeneo was performed in Vienna in 1931, it was in an adaptation by Richard Strauss with some of his own music included, so maybe it's for the best.) It just seems to me that the spirit and form of the opera seria, with its emphasis on virtues, would really appeal to von Hildebrand. 

He deplores (in 1962! already!?!) some of the misleading staging of Mozart's operas, the view that Giovanni is the hero of his opera--an anti-hero, at least--to the disparagement of Don Ottavio whom, along with Donna Anna, "deserve[s] our love" for their "moral depth." In a footnote to his discussion of "The Marriage of Figaro" he deplores productions that update the setting to "an art nouveau room" or "add farcical, coarse effects"! Von Hildebrand greatly appreciates the character of Cherubino, "that enchanting invention [of Beaumarchais], original in the operatic literature and so quintessentially Mozartean . . . An incarnation of Mozart's youthful phase of being in love, Cherubino is a unique character and without counterpart in the whole of literature." (p. 7)

He would have been most concerned with some performances of Cosi fan Tutte, when the couples switch after they've been re-united. I think he'd also be appalled with the depiction of Mozart in Amadeus, even though he knows that Mozart was no saint! Or rather, he'd be more concerned with Salieri's rejection of the true response to value, God's Providence in the distribution of talent.

Of course he does not neglect Mozart's other works, his symphonies, concerti, chamber music, and his religious music, including the Great Mass in C minor, the Requiem, and the "Ave Verum Corpus". He emphasizes the "festive radiance" and "the quintessentially Catholic character" of all of Mozart's works.

In the chapter on Beethoven he finds "such complete artistic fulfillment, such a conscious striving for specifically artistic worlds, such intentional realization of these worlds to the very last detail . . ." He writes of the art of Beethoven "is an unsurpassed expression of the objective logos. The ethos suffusing it is through and through that of a reverent and profoundly felt value-response [an emblematic statement of von Hildebrand's] of a surrender to the world of values and to God." (pp. 27-28)

Von Hildebrand especially praises Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, calling it "thoroughly Catholic": in the final words of this chapter, he writes:

When at the beginning of the Benedictus the violin rings out, it is as if heaven bends down; when the Dona nobis pacem resounds, as if humanity form its true metaphysical position looks up beseechingly to God. Truly, it ever in the world of art applies, then here we must say: "It is the Passover of the Lord." (p. 42)

The chapter on Schubert took me the longest time to read because I am not as familiar with Schubert's works, especially not his Lieder, so I had to stop to hear what von Hildebrand was praising because he knows Schubert's works so thoroughly, and he responds so empathetically to Schubert's person and art.  He calls him "a figure so uniquely loveable and filled with such extraordinary genius" (p. 44). He contrasts the joyful sharing of his music with close friends in the "Schubertiaden" to "an understanding of the tragic dimension of human existence in this valley of tears--a presentiment of death." (p. 45) 

Von Hildebrand comments on Schubert's lieder, saying he developed this form of song into "a fully artistic genre" . . . and that "His Lieder are musical poems." Von Hildebrand also praises Schubert's Masses, especially the Mass in E-flat Major, noting how he interweaves the Incarnatus the Crucifixus in the Credo, as "an entirely unique conception, which . . . allows us to see the mystery of the Incarnation in light of the Crucifixion." (p.61)

I found it interesting how few Italian (except for Mozart's three da Ponte operas) or French works or composers von Hildebrand discusses: no Massenet, Gounod (21 Masses!), or Thomas and certainly no Debussy or Berlioz. Even when he discusses Verdi, it's only Otello and Falstaff (Shakespearean inspirations with Boito's librettos; not Macbeth from Piave!)--and not La Traviata, Rigoletto, or Aida--and certainly no Puccini. He mentions Rossini's "Barber of Seville" once. No French melodie or Italian arie antiche, just German Lieder. His selections are focused! Probably depends on what was being performed in his time; musical tastes and trends change over time and place.

When he writes about Wagner's operas, which he had probably seen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus before fleeing Nazi territory in 1938, I still can't gain the kind of appreciation he has for these works. But I do think that he would be horrified by the different settings of the Ring cycle, etc. once the operas were allowed outside Wagner's designated performance site; (the Metropolitan Opera performed Parsifal in 1903 in spite of Cosima Wagner). 

When I think of Wagner's Ring cycle, I think of Anna Russell ("Remember the Ring?"; when Siegfried meets Gutrune, Russell exclaims that she is "the first woman he has met who isn’t his aunt!") so maybe that's my fault.

This is a book that demands a great deal from the reader. I was able to understand and sympathize with his expression of appreciation of Mozart most readily; Beethoven took some more recollection--I have listened to Beethoven through the years, including Fidelio--and Schubert took quite a few searches on YouTube to listen to some of his works. French and Italian are much easier for me to understand, but I've never studied German at all, so I have to take von Hildebrand's comments about the poetic expression of Lieder on his authority.

One of the reasons I've chosen it as one of the best books I read in 2025 is how much work I had to do to appreciate von Hildebrand's loving openness . . . reverent attention. . . . and . . . profound insight and joyful discovery." It was truly an interactive experience!

Honorable mention in this category of music appreciation goes to Dana Gioia's Weep, Shudder, Die.

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

As we continue to explore Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show, our next topic is "Christ in the Priest". Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I will discuss this chapter on Monday, January 12 at my usual time, a little after 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

You might remember that Benson is also known as a historical novelist dramatizing the course of the English Reformation in several novels, including Come Rack! Come Rope! (set around the time of the Babington Plot); The King's Achievement (about the Dissolution of the Monasteries), and its sequel By What Authority, set during the reign of Elizabeth I. There's a scene in that novel describing the celebration of Mass in a recusant household by a priest who has been released from prison after being racked. Isabel, an Anglican, witnesses her first Mass in the Roman Rite:

Isabel had a missal, lent to her by Mistress Margaret; but she hardly looked at it; so intent was she on that crimson figure and his strange movements and his low broken voice. It was unlike anything that she had ever imagined worship to be. Public worship to her had meant hitherto one of two things—either sitting under a minister and having the word applied to her soul in the sacrament of the pulpit; or else the saying of prayers by the minister aloud and distinctly and with expression, so that the intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. The minister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of His gospel to man.

But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priest was addressing God, not man . . . Here, as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she too began to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublime mystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleased into the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the act accomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful of disciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of this little lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of one who in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of God was empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Body that hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, were again spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine. (Chapter XI. "A Station of the Cross")

I quote that passage to remind us that after Benson was received into the Catholic Church and ordained a Catholic priest, he celebrated--and his readers in the early 20th century were attending--Holy Mass according to the Missal of Pope St. Pius V, in Latin, ad orientem, with a silent Roman Canon. So that's in the background throughout this chapter. (That's what I meant when I commented ". . . 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.") 

Benson is writing about the priesthood in a different time; when we in the USA read this chapter, for example, we might have the reality of the priest abuse scandal in our minds; Benson did not in his day. So when he comments: "Again and again, some unhappy priest, seeming to rise step by step in the spiritual life, extending his influence and his reputation, gathering admirers and dependents round him, suddenly offers to the world a heart-breaking reminder of his own weak humanity. It need not be a moral fall -- in the narrow sense -- thank God! it seldom is that -- but how often is there a sudden slackening of zeal, a sudden explosion of ludicrous personal pride . . ." and we might wince at his confidence!

Benson does not ignore the teaching/preaching efforts of priests, and you may read more about them in this chapter. What Benson emphasizes, as a Catholic priest himself, is how Christ is in the Priest in his sacramental offices; he refers to priests as "ambassadors of Christ" who:

. . . in virtue of the express commission which they have received, in such words as "This is My Body . . . do this for a commemoration of Me."^{6} "Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them"^{7} -- are empowered to do that which no merely earthly ambassador can do. They effect that which they declare: they administer the mercy which they preach. . . .

Here, then, we can say in reality, that Christ is present in His Priest -- present, that is, as He is present in no saint, however holy, and in no angel, however near to the Face of God. It is the priest's supreme privilege, as well as his terrifying responsibility, to be, in those moments during which he exercises his ministry, in a sense Christ Himself. He says not, "May Christ absolve thee"; but "I absolve thee"; not, "This is the Body of Christ"; but, "This is My Body." It is not then merely the utterance of the lips which Christ employs, but Himself for the moment must sway the Will and Intention; since it is a Divine Act that is done. He becomes present in the priest, then, by His priest's permission. As to whether or not, here and now, the Blessed Sacrament is consecrated (that is, the crowning marvel of Christ's mercy consummated) -- as to whether, here and now, the sorrowful sinner goes pardoned away -- as to whether, in a word, God, in this or that place, at this or that time, acts as God -- this hangs not merely on the mechanical words uttered by the priest, but by the union of his free-will and free intention with that of his Creator.

Perhaps because Benson is aware that we the faithful, the laity far outnumber the priests in the Church, he acknowledges:

It seems as if we had wandered far away from our theme -- Friendship with Christ. Yet we have never left it for a moment. We have considered various modes in which Christ's Friendship is made accessible to us; and have seen how it does not consist merely in an interior adherence to Him, but in an exterior recognition and an exterior welcome of Him. His Human Nature comes to us in the Sacrament of the Altar; His Divine authority comes in the Human Nature of those who compose His Church, and have a right to speak in His Name. These various characteristics of His cannot be apprehended -- that is to say, Friendship with Him cannot be what He means it to be -- without these further modes in which He accomplishes His Presence. And here, in His Priest, is yet another mode.

He dwells here on earth, speaking through the lips of His Priest, so far as that priest utters the authoritative and infallible teaching of the Mystical Body of which he is a mouthpiece. He energizes here on earth, in those Divine acts of the priest which Divine Power alone can accomplish, exercising the prerogative of mercy that belongs to God only, making Himself present in His Human Nature under the forms of the Sacrament which He Himself instituted. And, in addition to all this, He exhibits, in that atmosphere that has grown up about the Priesthood, through the instincts of the faithful rather than through the precise instructions of the Church, attributes of His own Divine character, in sympathy with which consists the friendship of those who love Him.

Nevertheless, Benson highlights a distinction the faithful should keep in mind:

Devotion to the priesthood, then, respect for the office, jealousy for its honour, insistence upon the high standard of those who fulfil it -- these are nothing else but manifestations of that Friendship of Christ of which we are treating, and recognitions of Himself in His minister and agent. Not to lean upon the priest -- (for no man is capable of bearing the full weight of another soul) -- but to lean indeed upon the priesthood -- this is reliance upon Christ: for as you approach the priest, understanding what it is for which you look, and discerning the man from his office, you approach that Eternal Priest who lives in him -- Him who is "a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech"; {9} Him of whom the highest praise which His prophet could utter, was to glorify Him as a "Priest upon His Throne." {10}

I read through a few of Pope Saint John Paul II's Holy Thursday Letters to priests from 1979 to 2005, in which he looked at the priesthood and the service of priests in the Church through the lens of the Second Vatican Council and other Church documents. John Paul repeats some of Benson's themes, especially in the Sacraments, but adds many more dimensions, particularly in spiritual direction, evangelization, aid to families, the Holy Spirit, Marian devotion, etc. But he and Benson certainly agree on the crucial role of the priest in our devotion to the Friendship of Christ.

Pope Saint John Paul II, pray for us!

CD REVIEW: "A Carnegie Hall Christmas" (1991/1992)

I haven't/didn't have the most outwardly festive Christmas holiday because my sister was ill and friends were unavailable for various reasons, but I did enjoy some beautiful Christmas music, including this CD from a Christmas concert at Carnegie Hall in 1991. The soloists are Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade (a Sophie and an Octavian*; a Susanna and a Cherubino, Gretel and Hansel**), with Andre Previn, Nancy Allen on the harp, The Orchestra of St. Luke's, The American Boy Choir, The Christmas Concert Chorus, and The Wynton Marsalis Quintet. There's 76 minutes and 19 seconds of music: traditional, opera, classical, jazz, popular, etc.

One of the best tracks is number 8, American Songs (in special arrangements just for this concert):

"I Wonder as I Wander" by John Jacob Niles (from Appalachia) with Nancy Allen on the harp; and Five Traditional Songs: "Mary Had a Baby"; "Oh Mary, What You Gonna Name that Pretty Little Baby?"; "Who Was Mary? Mary Was Queen of Galilee"; "Sister Mary Had-a But One Child" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain"

These songs are unabashedly Christian, emphasizing Jesus as Savior and Lord and Mary as His Mother, and everyone on stage joins in this melodious sequence. 

Other highlights are Michael Praetorius's "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" sung acapella by von Stade, the Boychoir, and the Chorus, Max Reger's "Maria Wiegenlied" with von Stade, Battle, and the Orchestra, and Pietro A. Yon's "Gesu Bambino" with Battle, von Stade, the Boychoir, and Orchestra. 

The last big number with the ensemble (arranged by Alexander Courage of Star Trek fame) presents French, Welsh, English, Traditional songs, including Adolphe Adam's "O Holy Night" and two settings of "Away in Manger"!

All of arrangements are classy and original, even if the *Sophie and Octavian insert part of the closing duet of Der Rosenkavalier into the "Twelve Days of Christmas"! There is another operatic number, the Evening Prayer from Humperdinck's **Hansel und Gretel. The Wynton Marsalis Septet and Andre Previn on the piano add some jazz to the soul and classical sounds of the concert.

There was also a DVD produced after this concert aired on PBS Great Performances and one can find excerpts on YouTube, but the CD sound is much better. It's a rich and elegant, spiritual and festive celebration of Christmas! The Metropolitan Opera also has the video available online for a fee.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Image Credit: Cover Art from the (c) 1992 Sony Classical CD (Fair Use in a product review)

One of the Best Books of 2025: "The Most Dangerous Man in England"

I've read many, many books about Saint John Henry Newman and nearly all them have added to my knowledge of this great saint and Doctor of the Church. Last year, I bought and read a copy of "The Most Dangerous Man in England": Newman and the Laity by Paul Shrimpton, published by Word on Fire Academic, and it certainly did fulfill that purpose. The publisher's book description:

Once described by the papal chamberlain George Talbot as “the most dangerous man in England,” John Henry Newman held bold views on the laity that challenged the ecclesial status quo of his day. But what exactly made his ideas so provocative? And what relevance do they have today?

In “The Most Dangerous Man in England”: Newman and the Laity, Paul Shrimpton examines Newman’s revolutionary perspective on the laity’s role in the Church and in the world. More than just an analysis of Newman’s writings, this work tells the story of the great saint’s dealings with lay men and women throughout his long and eventful life, revealing Newman’s lively insights, genius for friendship, and deep humanity. Shrimpton traces Newman’s journey from his influential years at Oxford to his leadership at the Birmingham Oratory, from the founding of the Catholic University in Ireland to his controversial efforts to establish a “Catholic Eton,” a boys’ school attached to the Birmingham Oratory. Through these episodes, Newman emerges as an example to pastors for how to work with and for the laity, as well as an example to laypeople for how to carry out a Christian apostolate through friendship. Shrimpton also shows how Newman’s emphasis on education for laypeople and the universal call to holiness anticipates the teachings of Vatican II by well over a century.

The whole Church, pastors and laity, should take note of the words and works of this great modern intellectual and Christian humanist. Newman’s vision has the potential to revitalize and empower every man and woman to embrace their mission to sanctify the world.

Paul Shrimpton has brought together his studies (A Catholic Eton? Newman's Oratory School (2005) and The “Making of Men”: The Idea and Reality of Newman's University in Oxford and Dublin (2015)) of Newman, his schools and a wide range of Newman's Anglican and Catholic interactions with and interventions for the laity in this magnificently comprehensive study.

There were probably some Anglicans who thought Newman was a dangerous man as he wrote the Tracts for the Times and argued for the apostolic authority of the Anglican bishops. After he became a Catholic, some Anglicans deplored the men and women who followed him as converts. But it was among the English Catholic hierarchy, some of the more ultramontane Catholic converts, and some of the old Recusant Catholic families that he was regarded as "the most dangerous man in England" because of their fear of the young, well-educated (Oxford and Cambridge) lay men and women whom Newman wanted to help, mostly through education and formation.

Shrimpton begins in Chapter 2, "Newman's Anglican Years, 1801-1845", with the Oxford years, highlighting Newman's service as a pastor to the Anglican congregations in matters of life and death, his efforts to educate his pupils as Tutor at Oriel College (in which he was thwarted by Whately), and of course his Tractarian movement efforts.

After Newman's conversion, Shrimpton emphasizes as much or more than Placid Murray, OSB in Newman the Oratorian: Oratory Papers 1846-1878, how and why Newman chose the Oratorian model of Saint Philip Neri. He chose the Oratorian vocation for himself and his Oxford converts as much for Neri's model for service to the laity in formation and education as for the Common Room community it provided them. The Little Brothers of the Oratory met to learn and share, both didactically and socially, with music and prayer. Newman wanted to do more for the ladies and girls of the Oratory too, and in course founded a "Catholic Eton" for the sons of many prominent Catholic families, certain of the need for the motherly touch at a boarding school. (Chapter 3, "Catholic and Oratorian, 1845-1890)

Shrimpton ably covers territory familiar to me from previous biographies and studies--the struggles to establish a true Catholic university for the laity in Ireland, the efforts to save The Rambler, and the mutiny at the first Oratory school, adding details throughout the episodes. Those details demonstrate Newman's comprehensive energy and the range and depth of his personal concern for his students, employees, and contacts. He was always ready to act, to advise, and to confront as necessary. (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8)*

Chapter 9, "Opposition to Newman and His Influence of the Laity, 1862-67", demonstrating how out of favor Newman was in those years is balanced by Chapter 11, "Vatican I, the Cardinalate, Newman's Last Years", when honors at Trinity College in Oxford, and at Rome, and in Catholic England (his "victory lap" when coming home with the Cardinal's hat) finally come to Newman. 

Chapter 10, "Dublin Revisited: Newman's Reflections on His "Campaign in Ireland", 1858-74) , could be subtitled "Newman's Second Apologia", as Newman looks back on what he wanted to achieve, how misunderstood and feared those goals were, and how he deprecates the effects on the laity of Ireland of the failure of that campaign--a battle on many fronts.

Then in Chapter 12, "At the Service of the Laity", Shrimpton offers great examples of Newman's personal and written contact with lay men and women, families, parishioners, etc., reminding me a little of Peter C. Wilcox's John Henry Newman: Spiritual Director, 1845-1890. The section on "The geography of Newman's Prayer" is beautifully moving.

Shrimpton's chapter on Newman and Vatican II acknowledges the Reverend Ian Ker's insights in Newman and Vatican II in Chapter 13, but focuses more on the laity (especially in the universal call to holiness and evangelization) with an appropriate emphasis on the laity in the Body of Christ, the Church, and the triple roles of priest, prophet, and king.

In the last chapter, "Newman Today", Shrimpton offers insights into how Newman is a guide for the laity in the Church as we are "Living in a world turned irreligious", highlights Newman's personalism via John F. Crosby and others, discusses the formation and education of the laity "as if truth really mattered", etc., but I found it somewhat repetitious, especially the section on Vatican II, "Both precursor and interpreter of Vatican II", since I'd just read about that.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, this is a great and comprehensive exploration of Newman and the Laity. It filled gaps in my knowledge--or reminded me--of certain important aspects of his efforts to aid the formerly ostracized Catholic laity of England, the recent lay converts, and the Irish in both Ireland and England. He wanted both to form them more fully in the Catholic Faith and to prepare them for evangelization and the defense of what they believed and lived. Highly recommended.

* Chapter 4, "Establishing a University in Ireland, 1851-54"; Chapter 5, "Running a Catholic University, 1854-58"; Chapter 6, "Establishing a Catholic Eton, 1857-59"; Chapter 7, "Rescuing "The Rambler" 1859; Chapter 8, "The Oratory School: Its Early Years and the Staff Mutiny, 1859-62".

Updated: From Advent to Christmas: "The Friendship of Christ"

Just a reminder: On Monday, January 5, 2026 we'll continue our Advent/Christmas 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. We'll continue discussing other chapters through the month of January!

Here is the link to the original post, with this poignant introductory comment from Monsignor Benson regarding "the Friendship of Christ":

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. 

Please read the rest there.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!