This Morning: "Mysteries in Religion" and the Ascension

As promised, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell at about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central to talk about a PPS (Parochial and Plain Sermon) St. John Henry Newman preached on Ascension Thursday, "Mysteries in Religion".

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here.

This will be the last episode in our series of Lenten and Easter encounters with Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons on the Son Rise Morning Show. We began with Lenten reflections from a collection of sermons, mostly from his Anglican years, but a few Catholic sermons, using The Tears of Christ, edited by Christopher O. Blum of the Augustine Institute, and then we continued with selections from The Newman Reader after Easter Sunday. Although most of us won't be celebrating the Solemnity of the Ascension on Thursday, 40 days after Easter, at a Mass of Obligation, it's appropriate to conclude with this sermon.

At the end of this sermon, Newman brings up the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, based upon the Book of the Revelation of John (Revelation 6:10, 11:17-18, and 15:3-4). He has commented on the expediency of our friends and family dying and going on to Heaven to pray for us and to do God's will and continues:

Yea, doubtless, they are keeping up the perpetual chant in the shrine above, praying and praising God day and night in His Temple, like Moses upon the Mount, while Joshua and his host fight with Amalek. Can they be allotted greater blessedness, than to have a station after the pattern of that Saviour who has departed hence? Has He no power in the world's movements because He is away? And though He is the Living and exalted Lord of all, and the government is on His shoulder, and they are but His servants, without strength of themselves, laid up moreover apart from the conflict of good and evil in the paradise of God, yet so much light as this is given us by the inspired pages of the Apocalypse, that they are interested in the fortunes of the Church.

And then he concludes by bringing back the theme of mystery, especially the mystery of our cooperation in God's plan for us and our world:

What has been now said about the Ascension of our Lord comes to this; that we are in a world of mystery, with one bright Light before us, sufficient for our proceeding forward through all difficulties. Take away this Light, and we are utterly wretched,—we know not where we are, how we are sustained, what will become of us, and of all that is dear to us, what we are to believe, and why we are in being. But with it we have all and abound. Not to mention the duty and wisdom of implicit faith in the love of Him who made and redeemed us, what is nobler, what is more elevating and transporting, than the generosity of heart which risks everything on God's word, dares the powers of evil to their worst efforts, and repels the illusions of sense and the artifices of reason, by confidence in the Truth of Him who has ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high? What infinite mercy it is in Him, that He allows sinners such as we are, the privilege of acting the part of heroes rather than of penitents?

With an echo of his sermon we talked about last week, "The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church", Newman concludes not by telling this congregation what they should do but what he and they will do:

We will not wish for sight; we will enjoy our privilege; we will triumph in the leave given us to go forward, "not knowing whither we go," knowing that "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." [1 John v. 4.] It is enough that our Redeemer liveth; that He has been on earth and will come again. On Him we venture our all; we can bear thankfully to put ourselves into His hands, our interests present and eternal, and the interests of all we love. Christ has died, "yea rather is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from His love? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us." [Rom. viii. 34-37.]

St. John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image credit: Ascension (1775) by John Singleton Copley, colonial era portraitist and historical painter.