and fall as the one side or the other gains the upper hand: now our
religion is a burden to the flesh, now it is the exercise in which our
soul delights; now it is the one thing that makes life worth living, now
the one thing that checks our enjoyment of life. These moods alternate,
inevitably and irresistibly, according as we allow the balance of our
parts to be disturbed and set swaying. And so, ultimately, there is
reserved for us the joy neither of beasts nor of angels, but the joy of
humanity. We are higher than the one, we are lower than the other, that
we may be crowned by Him Who in that same Humanity sits on the Throne of
God.

So much, then, for our introduction. We have seen how the Paradox of the
Incarnation alone is adequate to the phenomena recorded in the
Gospel--how that supreme paradox is the key to all the rest. We will
proceed to see how it is also the key to other paradoxes of religion, to
the difficulties which the history of Catholicism presents. For the
Catholic Church is the extension of Christ's Life on earth; the Catholic
Church, therefore, that strange mingling of mystery and common-sense,
that union of earth and heaven, of clay and fire, can alone be
understood by him who accepts her as both Divine and Human, since she is
nothing else but the mystical presentment, in human terms, of Him Who,
though the Infinite God and the Eternal Creator, was _found in the form
of a servant_, of Him Who, _dwelling always in the Bosom of the Father_,
for our sakes _came down from heaven_.




(ii) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN