October 9
St. John Henry Newman
Life (1801-1890)
Leader of the Oxford movement, prominent convert to Catholicism, cardinal, and one of the Church’s greatest apologists. He was born in London, the son of a London banker. At the age of seven, he entered the Ealing School and while there became initially attracted to the antireligious writings of Voltaire (1694-1778) and the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), one day announcing his disbelief in God and divine revelation. His master at the school persuaded him to read the writings of John Calvin (1509-1564), and Newman underwent a kind of conversion, reading the Bible with enthusiasm. In 1817, he enrolled at Trinity College, Oxford, and was converted to Anglicanism. In 1822, he became a fellow of Oriel and two years later was ordained a deacon. He was then appointed vice-principal of Alban Hall (1825) and vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford (1828). As a preacher, he attracted a wide following with his superb oratory; the crowds only increased after his resignation in 1832 from his tutorship at Oxford owing to a dispute over religious duties.
From that time, as Newman's belief in Anglicanism declined, he became a leading figure in the Oxford movement and acquired national notoriety for his writings entitled Parochial and Plain Sermons (1834-1842) and his contributions to the Tracts for the Times (1833-1841). He advocated a position for the Anglican Church that he characterized as the via media; this meant that Anglicanism held a middle ground between Romanism (with its papal infallibility) and Protestantism (with its lack of restraint for private judgment). This perspective was more fully developed in the Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church (1837) and Lectures on Justification (1838). Finally, he caused a firestorm of controversy in the Anglican Church with “Tract 90” in which he argued that the Thirty-Nine Articles should be interpreted in a manner in keeping with the Council of Trent. To him, the Thirty-Nine Articles were not directed against the leadership of the Catholic Church but the political supremacy of the papacy. Condemned by Anglican authorities, Newman resigned from St. Mary's, ended his association with Oxford, and retired to the village of Littlemore with several friends. His four friends entered the Church over the next several years, largely under Newman's influence, but he did not join himself until 1845. On October 9 of that year he wrote to his sister: “I must tell you what will pain you greatly. This night Father Dominic, the Italian Passionist, sleeps here. . . . I shall ask him to receive me into what I believe to be the One Fold of the Redeemer.” He then issued a defense of his decision, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845).
Newman traveled to Rome after his baptism and was ordained in 1847. He entered the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri and received permission from Pope Pius IX to open an oratory in Birmingham in 1849. From 1851-1858, he served as the first rector of the Catholic University of Dublin, finally resigning in 1858. In 1864, he became embroiled in a controversy with the Protestant clergyman Charlie Kingsley (d. 1875), who had slandered both Newman and the priesthood in an article. After several unsatisfactory exchanges, Newman released his Apologia pro vita sua (1864), a magnificent religious autobiography examining his religious thoughts to the time of his reception into the Church. It is also one of the greatest autobiographical works in the English language, and the primary source for the history of the Oxford movement. In 1870, he wrote A Grammar of Assent, a profound survey on the psychology of faith. Other writings included: Loss and Gain (1848, a novel); Callista (1856, a novel); The Dream of Gerontius (1866, in book form), a poem expressing the departure of a soul to God that was set to music by Edward Elgar (1857-1934); and Idea of a University (1852), containing Newman's vision of a liberal education.
In 1877, Newman was elected an honorary fellow of Trinity College. Two years later, in recognition of his service to the Church, Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal deacon. He chose as his motto, “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” (“Out of the shadows and images into the truth”). His elevation was greeted with genuine enthusiasm in England and elsewhere, and was considered a significant gesture by the Holy See to the English Catholics. Newman died at Edgebaston, Birmingham, where he had spent his final years, on August 11, 1890.
He was beatified on September 19, 2010 during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to England.
Pope Francis canonized him on October 13, 2019.
Source: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/john-henry-cardinal-newman-13805
Scriptures (1 Cor. 2:10b-16)
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Writings
(Year B). It is very plain, supposing it has been granted, which among all the religions of the world comes from God: and if it is not that, a revelation is not yet given, and we must look forward to the future. There is only one Religion in the world which tends to fulfil the aspirations, needs, and foreshadowings of natural faith and devotion. It may be said, perhaps, that, educated in Christianity, I merely judge of it by its own principles; but this is not the fact. For, in the first place, I have taken my idea of what a revelation must be, in good measure, from the actual religions of the world; and as to its ethics, the ideas with which I come to it are derived not simply from the Gospel, but prior to it from heathen moralists, whom Fathers of the Church and Ecclesiastical writers have imitated or sanctioned; and as to the intellectual position from which I have contemplated the subject, Aristotle has been my master. Besides, I do not here single out Christianity with reference simply to its particular doctrines or precepts, but for a reason which is on the surface of its history. It alone has a definite message addressed to all mankind. As far as I know, the religion of Mahomet has brought into the world no new doctrine whatever, except, indeed, that of its own divine origin; and the character of its teaching is too exact a reflection of the race, time, place, and climate in which it arose, to admit of its becoming universal. The same dependence on external circumstances is characteristic, so far as I know, of the religions of the far East; nor am I sure of any definite message from God to man which they convey and protect, though they may have sacred books. Christianity, on the other hand, is in its idea an announcement, a preaching; it is the depositary of truths beyond human discovery, momentous, practical, maintained one and the same in substance in every age from its first, and addressed to all mankind. And it has actually been embraced and is found in all parts of the world, in all climates, among all races, in all ranks of society, under every degree of civilization, from barbarism to the highest cultivation of mind. Coming to set right and to govern the world, it has ever been, as it ought to be, in conflict with large masses of men, with the civil power, with physical force, with adverse philosophies; it has had successes, it has had reverses; but it has had a grand history, and has effected great things, and is as vigorous in its age as in its youth. In all these respects it has a distinction in the world and a pre-eminence of its own; it has upon it primâ facie signs of divinity; I do not know what can be advanced by rival religions to match prerogatives so special; so that I feel myself justified in saying either Christianity is from God, or a revelation has not yet been given to us.
It will not surely be objected, as a point in favour of some of the Oriental religions, that they are older than Christianity by some centuries; yet, should it be so said, it must be recollected that Christianity is only the continuation and conclusion of what professes to be an earlier revelation, which may be traced back into prehistoric times, till it is lost in the darkness that hangs over them. As far as we know, there never was a time when that revelation was not,—a revelation continuous and systematic, with distinct representatives and an orderly succession. And this, I suppose, is far more than can be said for the religions of the East.
Musical Selection (John Henry Newman)
Collect