Paradoxes of Catholicism by Robert Hugh Benson
page 104 of 115 (90%)
page 104 of 115 (90%)
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them. Others again shall lose it, but regain it once more, and, through
the power of the Precious Blood, shall rise to heights of which Jacob and David never even dreamed. To _awake in His likeness_ was the highest ambition of _the man after God's Heart;_ but to be not merely like Christ, but one with Him, is the hope of the Christian. _I live_, the new saints shall say with truth, _yet now not I, but Christ liveth in me._ Next, instead of the old worship of blood and pain there shall be an Unbloody Sacrifice and a _Pure Offering_ in which shall be all the power and propitiation of Calvary without its pain, all the glory without the degradation. And last, in place of the old enclosed Race of Israel shall be a Church of all nations and tongues, one vast Society, with all walls thrown down and all divisions done away, one Jerusalem from above, that shall be the Mother of us all. III. That, then, is what Christ intended as He cried, _It is consummated._ Behold _the old things are passed away!_ Behold, _I make all things new!_ And now let us see how far that is fulfilled. Where is there, in me, the New Wine of the Gospel? I have all that God can give me from His Throne on Calvary. I have the truth that He proclaimed and the grace that He released. Yet is there in me, up to the present, even one glimmer of what is meant by Sanctity? Am I even within an appreciable distance of the saints who knew not Christ? Have I ever wrestled like Jacob or wept like David? Has my religion, that is to say, ever inspired me beyond the low elevation of joy into the august altitudes of pain? Is it possible that with me the old is |
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