The Friendship of Christ Quotes

“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?” ( 1 John 4:20 ).”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

“Henceforth He demands that all such conventions should cease; that we should be entirely open and honest with Him, that we should display ourselves as we really are -- that we should lay aside, in a word, all those comparatively harmless make-believes and courtesies, and be utterly real.”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ: Exploring The Humanity of Jesus Christ

“Interior Peace is necessary; since our true “life is hid with Christ in God” ( Colossians 3:3 ) – that Peace which, He Himself tells us, the world can neither give nor take away – a Peace, that is, which, unlike other satisfying emotions, is wholly independent of external things. It is this Peace into which Christ Himself entered, body and soul, when He committed His Spirit into His Father’s hands – that Sabbath Peace which He first inaugurated, and which “remaineth…for the people of God” ( Hebrews 4:9 ).”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

“It is not enough to know Christ in one manner only: we are bound, if we desire to know Him on His own terms and not on ours, to recognize Him under every form which He chooses to use. It is not enough to say, “Interiorly He is my Friend, therefore I need nothing else.” It is not loyal friendship to repudiate, for example, the Church or the Sacraments as unnecessary, without first inquiring whether or no He has instituted these things as ways through which He designs to approach us. And, particularly, we must remember, in the Blessed Sacrament He actually conveys to us gifts which we cannot otherwise claim.”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

“it is difficult for any soul to sin very outrageously so long as she feels the pressure of Christ’s hand in hers.”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

“Religion is not one of the departments which make up our life  (that is Religiosity)  but Religion is that which enters into every department, the fabric on which every device, whether of art or literature, or domestic interests, or recreation, or business, or human love, must be embroidered. Unless it is this, it is not Religion as it is intended to be.”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ

“When religion fails us, we console ourselves with the arts; when love or ambition disappoint us, we plunge into physical pleasures; when the body refuses to respond, we take refuge in our indomitable pride; and when that in its turn crumbles to nothing, we look to suicide and hell as a more tolerable environment. There seems no depth to which we will not go, in our passionate determination to make ourselves tolerable to ourselves.”
― Robert Hugh Benson, The Friendship of Christ