Our New Saint: John Henry Newman

At Belmont we have celebrated as Pope Francis created a new saint for the Church in England, John Henry Newman. On the weekend of the Canonisation the permanent deacons from the Archdiocese of Birmingham with with us on retreat.

It gives us pause to ask of this canonization, why Newman? What is his greatness? Is it as his insights as a teacher or warmth and humanity as a pastor? Is it as a man of courage seeking the truth at personal cost? Is it as a man of great friendships, who even at the painful parting of friends, maintained great affection for those he left behind. In his own words he wished to be “a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons…. an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place.” He was all those things and much more.

Writing in the Osservatore Romano in a generous tribute to the new saint, Prince Charles praised the way Newman respectfully engaged in public and private debate: "In the age when he lived, Newman stood for the life of the spirit against the forces that would debase human dignity and human destiny. In the age in which he attains sainthood, his example is needed more than ever – for the manner in which, at his best, he could advocate without accusation, could disagree without disrespect and, perhaps most of all, could see differences as places of encounter rather than exclusion." He also praised his theology as an Anglican and as a Catholic for its “fearless honesty, its unsparing rigour and its originality of thought.”

What is the originality of his thought, and why might people be talking about him being not just a saint, but a new Doctor of the Church? Why is he considered an early father of the Second Vatican Council?

As an Anglican priest-scholar he dug deep into the tradition of the church, with reverence for the Word of God, and its great interpreters, the Fathers of the Church. But as he came to believe that “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant" he could only seek communion with the Catholic Church, led by the "kindly light" of the Holy Spirit. And as he searched for the truth he proposed not new things, but uncovered eternal truths that had been half forgotten and made them shine again.

What he found in the Church was not an antique shop of ancient treasures to be nostalgically reverenced and guarded. What he found in the Church is a living body walking in history, whose faith does not change, but whose expression develops and deepens. We see new things. We see things better. The truths of faith become clearer over time.

In Newman’s great work of historical theology, his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine ,he would say that “to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Reflecting on this the then Cardinal Ratzinger would say of himself: “precisely in changing, I have tried to remain faithful to what I have always had at heart.” As Cardinal Claudio Hummes remarked of Newman “it is by moving forwards that makes the Church loyal to its true tradition.” Newman reminds us that the Church walks in history. The faith is dynamic. We are not antique dealers polishing the treasures of the past. The church is not preserved in formaldehyde.

But why did one English Roman Monsignor at the time of his conversion call him ‘the most dangerous man in England.’ Partly because of his promotion of the laity whom the Monsignor thought should stick to hunting, shooting and entertaining. The laity are at the heart of the Church, Newman would reply, and kept the faith at times in history when the bishops mislaid it. “In all times,” Newman insisted, “the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit.”

Once when discussing the laity, Archbishop Ullathorne scornfully asked Newman, “Who are the laity?” Newman wrote in his diary what he wished he had said in reply: “My Lord, the Church would look rather foolish without them.” In a lecture on Catholics in England he said: “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 their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity…”

At the end of Newman's life, Archbishop Ullathorne visited him, and when he was leaving, Newman knelt at his feet and asked his blessing, saying that his own poor work for the Church was as nothing compared to Ullathorne's. “I felt annihilated in his presence,” said Ullathorne; “There is a saint in that man.”

Newman prayed before the Blessed Sacrament: “I ask not to see — I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.” Just as he prayed not to see the distant scene, but take the next step necessary. It is a prayer we can make our own

Sir Edward Elgar set Newman’s great poem The Dream of Gerontius to music. He occasionally came here to worship in Belmont’s early years. In his diaries he records attending High Mass one Sunday and remarks upon the music: “heard the monks sing the Song of the Angel from the Dream of Gerontius.”

It is lovely to think that Elgar wove snatches of the monks’ singing into his setting of Newman’s great poem, their song adding melody to Newman’s Dream. Now as angel faces smile and rejoice in heaven at a new saint, we can echo their eternal hymn: “Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depth be praise. In all his words most wonderful, Most sure in all his ways.”