9 October: Saint John Newman, Oratorian and Cardinal
SEEKING THE KINDLY LIGHT
Jesus, “Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as Thou shinest: so to shine as to be a light to others” (Meditations on Christian Doctrine, VII,3). These celebrated words by Cardinal John Henry Newman sum up his thoughts and his legacy. He was a person who was “inconvenient” for his time, who drew many different reactions including among Catholics. He is known for his openness to lay people and to their participation in the evangelization of England in the 19th century, at a time when the country was still tied to tradition and against change. But Newman was certainly not one to take a step back, and he promoted an intelligent and well instructed laity: “I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold, and what they do not, who know their creed so well, that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it” (The Present Position of Catholics in England, IX, 390). He involved laypeople in teaching catechesis, and was met with opposition, even among the clergy.
Newman was born in London in 1901, to John, who was a banker and Jemina Foundrinier, who hailed from a family of Huguenots, who had been exiled from France after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. In 1808, he attended school in Ealing where he received an education expected of his social class. In 1816, his father’s bank went bankrupt, and influenced by a Calvinist pastor, Newman turned towards Protestantism and saw the Pope as the Antichrist.
In 1817, he began his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree. In 1822, he was appointed fellow of Oriel College, and on 13 June 1824, he was ordained a deacon of the Anglican Church. He became coadjutor of the parish church of St. Clement in Oxford. On 29 May 1825, he was ordained an Anglican priest.
On 14 March 1828, he was appointed parish priest of the University Church of St. Mary in Oxford, where he fostered an intense pastoral life among students.
In 1832, he visited Rome, Malta, Corfù and Sicily. In 1833, he composed the hymn, Lead, Kindly Light, which gained popularity because of the trust in Providence to which he referred in carrying out his mission in the world.
After returning to England, he heard a speech by John Keble in Oxford on 14 July 1833, titled National Apostasy, which gave rise to the Oxford Movement. Between then and 1841, Newman and Keble wrote 90 essays, which were published as a collection titled, Tracts for the Times. Newman wrote 26 of the essays, the last of which, Tract 90, was an interpretation of 39 articles of the Anglican Church from a Catholic point of view. He was condemned by both the Hebdomadal Board of Oxford University and by 42 Anglican Bishops. Newman thus resigned from his position at the University Parish of St. Mary, and on 9 April 1842, retreated with some friends to Littlemore, where in 1845, he developed his desire to convert to the Catholic Church. From then on, he became the object of continuous attacks from the press and public conferences.
Newman’s essays outlined principles of education, in which intellectual formation, moral discipline and religious commitment were considered as one thing that journeyed together. He moved to Rome and began to frequent the Congregation of the Oratory. He asked the Pope for permission to found an Oratory in Birmingham and to adapt some of the Constitutions to the situation in England.
On 30 May 1847, he was ordained a priest and on 2 February 1848, he founded the first Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England. In 1854, he moved to Edgbaston, a residential area on the outskirts of Birmingham. The same year he was appointed Rector of the new Catholic University of Dublin, for a four year term. In 1878, Trinity College Oxford elected him as “first honorary fellow”. On 12 May 1879, Leo XIII created him a Cardinal. Newman chose Cor ad cor loquitur (the heart speaks to the heart) as his motto, expressing his call to holiness as an intense desire of the human heart to enter into an intimate communion with the Heart of God.
Among his works, is the well-known An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, written in 1870, in which he demonstrated that even a simple man, a stranger to theology, could have a faith that was solid in reason. His intuitions about the relationship between faith and reason, and on the need for an integral education and a wide perspective, were the social consciousness of English society of the time. They continue to be a source of inspiration still today.
Other works include Sermons of 1843, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, also written in 1843, A Defence of One’s Own Life of 1864 and The Dream of Gerontius” of 1867.
After a few years of suffering, he celebrated his last Mass in public on Christmas Day 1889. He died in Edgbaston on 11 August 1890. At his request, his tombstone reads: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem (Out of the shadows into the light of Truth).
Newman left behind a precious legacy, the fruit of his union with the Lord and of his sharp intelligence and passion for studies. Aware that he had a task to do that had been entrusted to him by Providence, he wrote: “Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, … if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling”. (Meditations and devotions, 301-2/3).