"...Recently I was perusing one of Chesterton's most popular books, Orthodoxy, and my attention was drawn to chapter 6, 'The Paradoxes of Christianity'. In this section of the book Chesterton recalls his puzzlement when he read the critiques of Christianity that came from so many different quarters. On the one hand, Christianity - especially Catholicism - was criticized for being too worldly, too caught up in wealth, property, pomp, and ceremony.Where, for instance was the spirit of the carpenter of Nazareth in the expensive theatrical display of the Vatican? On the other hand, Christianity was reviled for its excessive spiritualism, its indifference to the concrete concerns of the world, its tendency to pine after 'the things of heaven'. Similarly, some critics complained that Christianity, with its stress on sin, penance, and punishment, was excessively pessimistic, while others held that, given its emphasis on the love of God, the intervention of the saints, and the promise of eternal life, it was ridiculously optimistic. Finally, certain enemies of the faith maintained, probably with Joan of Arc, and the Crusades in mind, that Christianity was bloodthirsty and warlike, while others held, probably with Frances in mind, that Christianity was too pacific and nonviolent. What puzzled Chesterton, of course, was not that the Church had its critics, but that its critics were so varied, so at odds with one another, so mutually exclusive.Whatever, this Christianity was, he concluded, it must be something strangely shaped indeed, to inspire such a wildly divergent army of enemies.
Then it occurred to him that perhaps it was not Christianity that was misshapen, but rather its critics. Perhaps it was they who, from their various eccentric points of view, saw the rightly shaped Christianity as distorted: 'suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall, and some too short; some objected to his fatness, and some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark and some too fair. One explanation...would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape.' It could be the case, in short, that 'it is Christianity that is sane, and all its critics are mad - in various ways' It is the sheer depth and breadth of the Church, the complexity and multifacetedness of it, which narrow-minded enemies cannot grasp. Christianity, Chesterton surmised, was perhaps, too capacious to be easily comprehended.
However - and here is Chesterton's main point - it does not seem that Christianity is merely 'sensible,' standing . as it were, in the middle, taking in both extremes. It does not seem to be the case that the Church is somewhat worldly and some what otherworldly, to some degree life affirming and to some degree life denying, a little optimistic and a little pessimistic. on the contrary, there seems to be, everywhere in the life of the Church, a quality of excess, frenzy, enthusiasm: Francis of Assisi was 'more a shouting optimist than Walt Whitman' and St Jerome, 'in denouncing all evil, could paint the world blacker than Schopenhauer.' One Christian saint could be more starkly ascetical than the severest Stoic, another Christian saint could celebrate life more ecstatically than a priest of Dionysus. In defending the celibacy of the clergy, the Church could be 'ferociously against having children', and in upholding marriage and family, it could be at the same time, ferociously for having children.' The Church consistently and poetically placed opposites side by side, and allowed them to coexist in all the purity, power, and intensity; Christianity encouraged lamb and lion to lie down together, without ever forcing the lion to become lamblike or the lamb lionlike. Chesterton offers us a wonderful image: The Church 'has always had a healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colors which is the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey.' "
Bridging the Great Divide, Robert Barron, Bowman & Littlefield, pp. 5, 6
What a beautiful exposition of Chesterton's vision of the Church! I can't help thinking that much of the cultural Catholicism of today is precisely the bland "pink", or the dirty "grey" that are foreign to the Church's nature. Also, no individual saint, no matter how great, could ever perfectly harmonize or contain the richness of the Church in his own personality, first of all because all of us are limited creatures very much affected by original sin, and secondly because the virtues of a saint would have most likely been developed as a result of his conversion, and served as a corrective to the abuses of his day and age. So every age challenges us to sanctity with its unique blend of circumstances.
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