Blessed John Henry Newman

Details: 29 October 2010

Eyes Open

The vast knowledge of history which Cardinal Newman possessed at the time of his conversion to the Catholic Faith prevented him from any "pollyanna" (i.e. over optimistic) misunderstanding the holiness of the Church. He knew quite well the extraordinary paradox that the Church, founded by Jesus Christ, is sinless and intrinsically holy, while at the same time she is composed of sinners and sometimes contains people who were and are far from holy. The Catholic Church is always holy in her doctrine, the unmutilated and incorrupt teaching she possesses from and about Jesus, and forever holy in her liturgy, the Mass and sacraments, which do not depend for their supernatural efficacy on the holiness of the priest or other minister, and holy and the cause of holiness in her laws, her devotional life, and her hierarchical, ecclesiastical discipline. She has produced, down more than twenty centuries, an enormous throng of saints, including martyrs, virgins, confessors, married and widowed saints, and holy men and women of every kind and from every age. Nevertheless the reality of the weeds and wheat growing together in God’s kingdom (Matthew 13:24-30) was always apparent to Newman, not only from his deep historical studies, but also from his later labors in what Pope Benedict XVI calls "his profoundly human vision of priestly ministry at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and poor, comforting the bereaved, and caring for those in prison." Thus, Newman always realized and rejoiced in the irrevocable promise of Christ to be with His Catholic Church always, (Matthew 28:20) and Jesus’ glorious reassurance that God, the Holy Spirit, would be her divine Guide and Companion in her entire journey through history (John 14:26-31 & 16:7-14) until His return to earth.

Observation

Already when he was not yet a Catholic, but coming close, Newman wrote about the Catholic Church: "It is true there have been seasons when from the operation of external or internal causes, the Church has been thrown into what was almost a state of deliquium, but her wonderful revivals while the world was triumphing over her is further evidence of the absence of corruption in the system of doctrine and worship into which she has developed. If corruption be an incipient disorganization, then surely an abrupt and absolute reoccurence to the former state of vigor after an interval is even less conceivable than a corruption that is permanent."

Newman goes on to say, "Now this is the case for the revivals I speak of. After violent exertion, men are exhausted and fall asleep. They wake the same as before, refreshed by the temporary cessation of their activity, and such has been the slumber and such the restoration of the Church. She pauses in her course, and almost suspends her functions. She rises again, and she is herself once more. All things are in their place and ready for action. Doctrine is where it was and usage and precedence and principle and policy. There may be changes, but they are consolidations or adaptations. All is unequivocal and determinate with an identity which there is no mistaking. Indeed, it is one of the most popular charges against the Catholic Church at this very time that she is incorrigible. Change she cannot, if we listen to Saint Athanasius or Saint Leo. Change she never will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day."

Almost Like Now

Looking into the past of the Church, Newman also described in his book "The Idea of a University" what could be a picture of some aspects of our contemporary Catholic Church: "It is a miserable time when a man’s Catholic profession is no voucher for his orthodoxy, and when a teacher of religion may be within the Church’s pale, yet external to her faith. Such as been for a season the trial of her children at various eras of her history. It was the state of things during the dreadful Arian ascendancy, when the flock had to stay aloof from the shepherd, and the unsuspicious Fathers of the Western Councils trusted and followed some consecrated sophist from Greece or Syria. It was the case in those passages of medieval history when simony resisted the Supreme Pontiff, or when heresy lurked in universities. It was longer and more tedious trial while the controversies lasted with the Monophysites of old and with the Jansenists in modern times. A great scandal it is and is a perplexity to the little ones of Christ to have to choose between rival claimants upon their allegiance, or to find a condemnation at length pronounced upon one whom, in their simplicity, they have admired. We too in this age have our scandals, for scandals there must be..."

After mentioning the possibilities of "rampant infidelity" and "false teachers", Newman cites Sacred Scritpure, in which he notes, "The Apostle says, ‘They went out from us but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they left in order to make manifest that not one of them was of us.’ (1 John 2:19)." Then Newman goes on to describe an internal attitude or prejudice, sometimes subtle and unspoken, but often present in a non-Catholic university: "I have already said that its fundamental dogma is that nothing can be known for certain about the unseen world. This being taken for granted as a self-evident point, undeniable (to such a university) as soon as stated, it goes on to argue that, in consequence, the immense outlay, made of time, anxiety, and toil, of health , bodily and mental, upon theological researches has been simply thrown away. Nay, has been, not merely useless, but even mischievous, inasmuch as it has indirectly thwarted the cultivation of studies of greater promise and of an evident utility. This is the main position of the school I am contemplating (describing -the non-Catholic university), and the result, in the minds of its members, is a deep hatred and a bitter resentment against the Power which has managed, as they consider, to stunt the world’s knowledge and the intellect of man for so many hundred years."

Reeling But Erect

Had he know the expression later used by Chesterton (in his book "Orthodoxy"), there is little doubt that Cardinal Newman would have seen it as encapsulating his view of the Catholic Church throughout human history: "The heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, but the wild truth reeling but erect." Following her incarnate Founder, the Catholic Church is both visible and invisible, human and divine. Unlike Jesus, Who was like us in all things but sin, however, the human element in His Church still bears the pull of original sin in her members and, thus, can be and often is a source of disappointment, hurt, and even scandal. But He is always with His Church to forgive when necessary, to ever call for repentance, and eternally to proclaim the truth "that makes one free" (John 8:32). Knowing and living in that attitude after his conversion to the Catholic Church enabled Newman, in the words of the hymn he composed, to sing with the angels of heaven to God: "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. O loving wisdom of our God, when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came."