CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 42
NEWMAN’S CANONIZATION AND
A CONTINUED SPRINGTIME
IN 1985, amid the growing secularization of Europe, Pope St. John Paul II spoke of the need for new heralds of the Gospel. These are the men and women of our times, but also those of only some generations past who inspire and teach those of the present. As noted earlier the same pope declared Newman venerable, the step prior to his beatification in 2010, and now God has wished to open the way to his canonization with a second miracle.
In February 2019, the Holy See issued a decree acknowledging as miraculous a second cure attributed to the intercession of Cardinal Newman. It is the case of a pregnant mother who experienced bleeding at an early stage of her pregnancy. She prayed to Newman for the bleeding to stop and was cured. Months later she delivered a healthy child. It is expected that in a consistory in July, Pope Francis will announce the date of the canonization of this English cardinal.
As Newman’s canonization approaches, we can consider the major achievements in his works and teaching. Newman made important contributions to theology and to an understanding of the nature of a university education. These works have been studied by many scholars but are, for the most part, not known to Catholics. Newman’s thought pertains to various areas of theology such as revelation, the development of doctrine, the relationship of faith and reason, and ecclesiology. In a more recent book Holiness in a Secular Age, the Witness of Cardinal Newman1 I provide a general account of this body of knowledge and those in the field of learning, in particular university education. In all of these areas, Newman offers insights and teaching that are not only valuable to men and women today, but add to the body of teaching of the Church.
Newman leaves the Church a rich legacy in the spiritual life. His journey from Anglicanism to Catholicism is a spiritual aeneid characterized by passion for religious truth, sincerity, and openness to the light of the Holy Spirit. It is also an example of Christian endurance in the face of moral suffering, punctuated by the capacity to forgive. In his Apologia he quotes Virgil’s words from the Aeneid “venturing again upon the ‘infandum dolorem’ [unspeakable grief] of years, in which the stars of this lower heaven were one by one going out.” What Rome was to Aeneas the Catholic Church was to Newman. His protracted journey to the Church provides answers and encouragement to many who today struggle with the difficulties of religious beliefs and personal shortcomings to embrace the Church instituted by Jesus Christ.
Before he set out upon this journey, Cardinal Newman worked tirelessly to renew the Anglican Church. Once he became Catholic, he continued his work, fortifying the Catholic Church, providing us with an example of what today goes by the name of evangelization and catechesis. When the Catholic hierarchy was re-established in England, he preached a sermon to the synod of bishops titled A Second Spring evoking the dedication of generations of saints and spurring on his fellow Catholics to a new springtime of the faith.
Since Newman taught at Oxford and founded both a university and a school, he understood that the intellectual and moral formation of students is a key element in evangelization. This is relevant for us today, and yet another thing to which we can turn to Newman for guidance; for the formation of its future leaders, both clergy and laity, the Church needs to give a renewed importance to its educational work, in particular forming in youth the habit of thinking and practice of virtue.
From his experience as founder of a school he gives us lessons about the education of youth, especially the role of parents working with teachers in the education of their children. He also stressed the need to educate youth in the responsible use of their freedom. And he reminds us that the Catholic schools play a key role in the spiritual and moral renewal of the Church.
Three elements stand out in Newman’s work of evangelization: his use of words, his example, and his friendships, all of which have appeared throughout this biography.
Newman was a man of letters in the full sense of this expression. Through his numerous articles, sermons, and many books he transmitted the faith. By means of well-chosen words and images, and carefully crafted arguments, he taught and continues to teach thousands of people. Many recount how his works have been a powerful aid in helping them to know and embrace the Catholic Church. Newman, as a thinker and an exceptional writer, shows us the need to sharpen our skills in the use of words for the sake of making Christ known.
Words alone, however, do not convince. People are moved by the coherent lives and attractive examples of others. Newman was such an example for those who went to listen to his sermons. During a later time of agitation against Catholics in England he gave some conferences to members of the Birmingham Oratory, at the end of which he asserted that personal example will win the day.
You see, then, Brothers of the Oratory, where your success lies, and how you are to secure it. Never mind the London press; never mind Exeter Hall; never mind perambulating orators or solemn meetings: let them alone, they do not affect local opinion. They are a blaze amid the stubble; they glare, and they expire. Do not dream of converting the public opinion of London; you cannot, and you need not. Look at home, there lies your work; what you have to do, and what you can do, are one and the same. Prove to the people of Birmingham, as you can prove to them, that your priests and yourselves are not without conscience, or honour, or morality; prove it to them (…). If, then, a battle is coming on, stand on your own ground, not on that of others; take care of yourselves; be found where you are known; make yourselves and your religion known more and more, for in that knowledge is your victory. Truth will out; truth is mighty and will prevail.2
Furthermore, as can be gleaned from this biography, Newman won many to Christ by means of his genuine and noble friendship. He had many friendships based on similar interests or concerns which over the years through many exchanges and acts of service grew into deeper friendships based on Christian charity. These became a natural avenue for the exercise of a profound personal influence that carried more weight than mere reasonings:
The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.3
In the end, evangelization and catechesis require personal friendship imbued with acts of service and examples of Christian living. It is a task for all Christians. St. John Paul II taught that no one can exclude himself from this work thinking that it is for superheroes. In his own words:
As the Council itself explained, this ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few “uncommon heroes” of holiness. The ways of holiness are many, according to the vocation of each individual. I thank the Lord that in these years he has enabled me to beatify and canonize a large number of Christians, and among them many lay people who attained holiness in the most ordinary circumstances of life. The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living.4
This great work of evangelization about which he speaks draws its strength from prayer, the sacraments, and sacrifice. Newman, who had experienced suffering in his life, recognized the fruits of suffering for generations of English Catholics preceding him:
Yes, my Fathers and Brothers, and if it be God’s blessed will, not Saints alone, not Doctors only, not Preachers only, shall be ours—but Martyrs, too, shall reconsecrate the soil to God. We know not what is before us, ere we win our own; we are engaged in a great, a joyful work, but in proportion to God’s grace is the fury of His enemies. They have welcomed us as the lion greets his prey. Perhaps they may be familiarized in time with our appearance, but perhaps they may be irritated the more. To set up the Church again in England is too great an act to be done in a corner. We have had reason to expect that such a boon would not be given to us without a cross. It is not God’s way that great blessings should descend without the sacrifice first of great sufferings.5
In our times, the Church faces a similar great struggle in many parts of the world, and in the Western world the struggle especially against moral relativism and pagan materialism. In a written meditation, Newman invites each person to try to discover and respond to the specific call that God makes to him:
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. 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, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.6
Led by grace, and moved by his passion for truth, Newman discovered the fullness of the teaching of Christ in the Catholic Church, and he inspired many to a second spring in the Church of England. Although of short duration, this Catholic revival gave rise to great men such as Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Christopher Dawson. If we Christians respond to God’s call there will be new spring times in those countries who earlier received the faith, and a birth to faith in Christ in those countries that as yet have not been evangelized.
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1Juan R. Vélez, Holiness in a Secular Age, the Witness of Cardinal Newman, Princeton: Scepter Publishers, 2017.
2Present Position of Catholics, 385.
3Idea of a University, 92-93.
4St. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Novo millenio ineunte, Vatican, 2001, 31.
5Sermons Preached on Various Occasions, 178.
6Meditations and Devotions, 301.