Robert Hugh Benson Quotes

There is no arguing with people who say that, since there is nothing but Nature, no process can be other than natural. There is no sign, even from heaven, that could break down the intellectual prejudice of such people. If they saw Jesus Christ Himself in glory, they could always say that "at present science cannot account for the phenomenon of a luminous body apparently seated upon a throne, but no doubt it will do so in the course of time." If they saw a dead and corrupting man rise from the grave, they could always argue that he could not have been dead and corrupting, or he could not have risen from the grave. Nothing but the Last Judgment could convince such persons. Even when the trumpet sounds, I believe that some of them, when they have recovered from their first astonishment, will make remarks about aural phenomena.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly is not freedom, except in the minds of those who prefer darkness to light and chains to liberty. The more true information we can acquire, the better for our enfranchisement.

It seems to me probably that any one who has a series of intolerable positions to put up with must have been responsible for them to some extent ... they have contributed to it by impatience or intolerance, or brusqueness-or some provocation.

After a Retreat

What hast thou learnt today?
Hast thou sounded awful mysteries,
Hast pierced the veiled skies,
Climbed to the feet of God,
Trodden where saints have trod,
Fathomed the heights above?
Nay,
This only have I learnt, that God is love.

What hast thou heard today?
Hast heard the Angel-trumpets cry,
And rippling harps reply;
Heard from the Throne of flame
Whence God incarnate came
Some thund'rous message roll?
Nay,
This have I heard, His voice within my soul.

What hast thou felt today?
The pinions of the Angel guide
That standeth at thy side
In rapturous ardours beat
Glowing, from head to feet,
In ecstasy divine?
Nay,
This only have felt, Christ's hand in mine.

A Halt

Lie still, my soul, the Sun of Grace
Is warm within this garden space
Beneath tall kindly trees.
The quiet light is green and fair;
A fragrance fills the swooning air;
Lie still, and take thine ease.

This silent noon of Jesu's love
Is warm about thee and above-
A tender Lord is He.
Lie still an hour- this place is His
He has a thousand pleasaunces,
And each all fair and fragrant is,
And each is all for thee.

Then, Jesu, for a little space
I rest me in this garden place,
All sweet to scent and sight.
Here, from this high-road scarce withdrawn,
I thrust my hot hands in the lawn
Cool yet with dew of far-off dawn
And saturate with light.

But ah, dear Saviour, human-wise,
I yearn to pierce all mysteries,
To catch Thine Hands and see Thine Eyes
When evening sounds begin.
There, in Thy white Robe, Thou wilt wait
At dusk beside some orchard gate,
And smile to see me come so late,
And, smiling, call me in.

It is only the souls that do not love that go empty in this world.

As she went down the steps leading to the station square she noticed a priest going before her. He seemed a very upright and sturdy old man, for though his hair was white he walked steadily and strongly. At the foot of the steps he stopped and half turned, and then, to her surprise, she saw that his face was that of a young man, fine-featured and strong, with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes. Then she passed on and began to cross the square in the direction of her aunt's house. Then without the slightest warning, except one shrill hoot from overhead, a number of things happened. A great shadow whirled across the sunlight at her feet, a sound of rending tore the air, and a

And now, you till come,

Love seeks not to possess, but to be possessed.

While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any emotion so utterly at the mercy of time. We form friendships, and grow out of them. It might almost be said that we cannot retain the faculty of friendship unless we are continually making new friends.

I must not take this or that doctrine by itself; but I must make up my mind whether or no it is the one only Catholic Church, and then I shall believe all that she teaches, because she teaches it, and not because I understand it.

Christianity is absurd and impossible. Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue
I am not speaking of that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely true
but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent as well

O Deus Ego Amo Te

Oh God, I love Thee mightily,
Not only for Thy saving me,
Nor yet because who love not Thee
Must burn throughout eternity.
Thou, Thou, my Jesu, once didst me
Embrace upon the bitter Tree.
For me the nails, the soldier's spear,
With injury and insult, bear-
In pain all pain exceeding,
In sweating and in bleeding,
Yea, very death, and that for me
A sinner all unheeding!
O Jesu, should I not love Thee
Who thus hast dealt so lovingly-
Not hoping some reward to see,
Nor lest I my damnation be;
But as Thyself hast loved me,
So love I now and always Thee,
Because my King alone Thou art,
Because, O God, mine own Thou art!

The Church must be intelligible to the simple as well as to the shrewd.

Thus, in truth, a sojourn in Rome means an expansion of view that is beyond words. Whereas up to that time I had been accustomed to image Christianity to myself as a delicate flower, divine because of its supernatural fragility, now I saw that it was a tree in whose branches the fowls of the air, once the enemies of its tender growth, can lodge in security - divine since the wideness of its reach and the strength of its mighty roots can be accounted for by nothing else. Before I had thought of it as of a fine, sweet aroma, to be appreciated apart; now I saw that it was the leaven, hid in the heavy measures of the world, expressing itself in terms incalculably coarser than itself, until the whole is leavened.

In the ages of faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance. The alliance of Psychology and Materialism did indeed seem, looked at from one angle, to account for everything; it needed a robust supernatural perception to understand their practical inadequacy.

You can love a person deeply and sincerely whom you do not like. You can like a person passionately whom you do not love.

Men do recognise at last that a supernatural Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration.

Society is not merely a select body of spiritual or intellectual persons, but a great organism composed of all kinds of members, a net containing bad and good.

Yet Percy, even in the glimpses he had had in the streets, as he drove from the volor station outside the People's Gate, of the old peasant dresses, the blue and red-fringed wine carts, the cabbage-strewn gutters, the wet clothes flapping on strings, the mules and horses
strange though these were, he had found them a refreshment. It had seemed to remind him that man was human, and not divine as the rest of the world proclaimed
human, and therefore careless and individualistic; human, and therefore occupied with interests other than those of speed, cleanliness, and precision.

The union of the family lies in love; and love is the only reconciliation of authority and liberty.

I think that the insane desire one has sometimes to bang and kick grumblers and peevish persons is a Divine instinct.

For where men have made the earth that is trodden underfoot, and have largely veiled the heavens themselves, it is but natural that they should think that they have made everything, and that it is they who rule it.