Catholic Thought discussion

Chapter III
Benson spends four happy years with the community of Mirfield Brethren, a religious community whose “external life was a modification of the old Religious Rules and resembled, so far as I understand, a kind of combination of the Redemptorist and the Benedictine.” While he was there the community underwent a transition to a more Catholic leaning. During this time his progression towards Catholicism continues. In the beginning of the chapter he makes a remark as to how conversion is perceived by others.

”when a Catholic leaves the Church, those from whom he separates himself regard him as one who has left the Fold of Christ for the wilderness. It does not at all signify to what other body he may attach himself: he has left what his friends hold to be the Body of Christ. But when a High Church-man becomes Catholic, on the Anglican theory all that he has done is to have transferred himself from one part of the Church to another. … he has only detached himself from Canterbury, not from the Church of Christ, as Anglicans understand it.”

Benson postpones his profession to the community for one year. He is unsure if he really fits in. This is a bit surprising, for he stated before how happy he was there. His thoughts are occupied with the fragmentation of the Anglican church within its wider body. He is faced with constant adjustments concerning his work in different parishes, from High Church to Low Church and various permutations in between. By this time he had accepted the dogmas of the Catholic Church except for the pope’s infallibility. As a result he no longer can reconcile his old way of defining his faith, he is looking for something more unified. “The Catholic Church, I now premised, consisted of those bodies of Christians retaining the Catholic Creeds and the Apostolic ministry.” He calls this new understanding of his faith “Diffusive Theory.”

Last sentence in chapter:

"He was preparing me, as I see now very well, for the great decision that He was to set before me so soon.

You get to the heart of these chapters Kerstin. I read them twice but your précis is exact and accurate. There is nothing to add.

"Benson spends four happy years with the community of Mirfield Brethren, a religious community whose “external life was a modification of the old Religious Rules and resembled, so far as I understand, a kind of combination of the Redemptorist and the Benedictine.”

It's hard to imagine what a "combination of Redemptorist and the Benedictine" community would be like. Redemptorist are missionary while Benedictine are monastic.

Galicius wrote: "You get to the heart of these chapters Kerstin. I read them twice but your précis is exact and accurate. There is nothing to add."

This is mighty nice of you to say so, Galicius! ...and comment anyway :) I am sure your reaction to the book is different from mine.

Manny wrote: ""Benson spends four happy years with the community of Mirfield Brethren, a religious community whose “external life was a modification of the old Religious Rules and resembled, so far as I understa..."

Benson does write he is preaching in different churches and he uses the word "mission" in this context as well, so this may be the "Redemptorist" aspect, while the community itself, I imagine, lives by an adaptation of Benedict's Rule. That's how I understood this passage.

We do get a glimpse of this adaptation when he describes that their "final vows" were only temporary, the public profession is not for life, but up for renewal every year.

This reminds me of something Scott Hahn has explained very well, the distinction between a vow and a contract. A vow is a gift of persons, where the person freely gives himself or herself in marriage, or to God in a religious community and/or Holy Orders. A contract is an exchange of goods and services. This is why marriage or religious vows can never be a contract.

What we see here in this religious community us a muddling of both. The profession doesn't reach the level of a vow, for the temporary nature gives it the feel of a renewal of contract, and since we have people and not goods and services, it is more of a continued affirmation and promise - but not a total gift.

It was his time in Mirfield that set him into doubt about the Church of England. This passage I think is very important:

Originally, as a "Moderate High Churchman," I had held that the Church of England, in her appeal and in her supposed resemblance to the "Primitive" Church, was the most orthodox body in Christendom; that Rome and the East on the one side had erred through excess; and the Non-conformist bodies on the other through defect, and these, further, through their loss of episcopal succession, had forfeited any corporate place in the Visible Body of Christ. But this doctrinal position had long ago broken down under me. First, I had seen the impossibility of believing that for about a thousand years the promises of Christ had failed—between, that is, the fifth or sixth century and the Reformation period—and that corruption during all this space of time had marred the original purity of the Gospel. Next, I had begun to perceive that in the Church of Christ there must be some Living Voice which, if not actually infallible, must at least be taken to be such—some authoritative person or Council who could pass judgment upon new theories and answer new questions. I had attempted, strangely enough, to find this Living Voice in the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles—to seek in them, that is to say, a final immediate interpreter of remote Primitive and Apostolic Faith. But now I had learned the fallacy of such an attempt, since even these formularies could be, and were, taken in completely divergent senses: the Ritualist, for instance, finds that the Prayer Book Catechism teaches the Objective and Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, and the Low Churchman claims it as teaching Receptionism. Then, when I had looked despairingly to the only elements in the Church of England which bear any resemblance at all to a Living Voice—the decisions of Convocation, the resolutions of Pan-Anglican Conferences, and the utterances of Bishops—I found, either that these were divided amongst themselves, or that they refused to answer, or, at the worst, that they answered in a manner which I could not reconcile with what I was convinced was the Christian Faith. The "Moderate High Church" theory, then, had broken down so far as I was concerned, and I had been forced, it seemed to me, both by logic and the pressure of circumstances, to seek some other theory as the foundation of my faith. This I found, for the time, in the Ritualistic School. It was as follows.

It's probably hard for us to understand what a "moderate High Church" is, but the fact of such a fine categorizations existed I think shows the turmoil that the CofE was undergoing. There was an incredible tension within its theology. If it became too Papist, the congregants saw the error of its ways; if it became too Calvinist, it didn't feel theologically sound. So it tried to create fine distinctions,

That's a very fine observation!
The splitting of hairs that is necessary within Protestantism so as to distinguish itself from the Catholic Church but at the same time to keep within its own denominational parameters, is quite a walk on the tightrope. For those sincerely seeking the truth these contortions no longer hold up. Once a person realizes this, you have to make a decision on how you're going to react to it. It is quite a dilemma to be in! And as Benson states (though I forget where) there is an agony that comes with it that pierces the soul.