130 Years Ago Today: Saint John Henry Newman

Saint John Henry Newman died on August 11, 1890.

Note, however, that his feast is celebrated on October 9, the anniversary of his coming in to the one fold of Christ. The great follower of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare of Assisi is celebrated on August 11 and she is a very popular saint! Since his canonization last year the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has not added his feast as an optional memorial to the Liturgical/Sanctoral Calendar (Saint Denis, Bishop, and Companions, Martyrs and Saint John Leonardi, Priest are currently the optional memorials to the Weekday this year).

Newman had been in failing health since the end of 1889; he was nearly blind (having memorized two votive Masses so he could offer Mass privately) and had indeed said Mass the last time on Christmas day that year. Unable to read the Breviary, he prayed the Rosary unless another Oratorian read the Office to/with him.

Two days before Newman died his niece Grace Longford, the only child of his estranged sister Harriett visited him. Newman had not seen her since she was three years old, because Harriet had cut off all contact with him after he became a Catholic on October 9, 1845. 

Adds a certain human poignancy to his feast day, doesn't it? reminding us of all he sacrificed for the truth: Friends, family, reputation, livelihood, and home.

The Newman Reader offers a collection of contemporary press comments on Newman's death. One highlight is from the The Times of London:

A great man has passed away; a great link with the with past has been broken. Thus enviably closes a most noteworthy life; a life that in itself sums up in the best and most attractive way one side of the religious life of the century. At ninety years of age, full of years, full of honour, but not of honours, in the obscurity of his almost private home, the great man receives the last summons and quietly obeys. A most interesting chapter of our history closes his death, and a life which bears strange testimony to the permanence of certain types in human nature becomes a part of the past. Once more the world is reminded of the degree in which respect and love still attach to the saintly life, when it is coupled with one or another kind of intellectual leadership. Cardinal NEWMAN is literally the last of his generation. Many of his old friends and colleagues he has long survived; others have but lately passed away; but he, to all appearance the most fragile of all, has remained till now. . . .

The writer of this meditation on Newman's life and death was not only thinking of the past--he was looking to the future! And we are fortunate to know the answer: Yes!

Will NEWMAN'S memory survive in the estimation of his country? Will his books maintain it? That is a question which may be asked today, but which the future only can answer. Of one thing we may be sure, that the memory of his pure and noble life, untouched by worldliness, unsoured by any trace of fanaticism, will endure, and that whether Rome canonizes him or not he will be canonized in the thoughts of pious people of many creeds in England. The saint and the poet in him will survive. "Lead, kindly Light," is already something better than a classic; the life at Littlemore and at Edgbaston will engrave itself deep into the memory of all to whom religion and lofty human character are dear.

Several other press notices mentioned "Lead, kindly Light" in their praise of Newman's legacy:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on;
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on;
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.

So long Thy pow’r has blest me, sure it still
Wilt lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Speaking of poetry, the Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti wrote a sonnet titled Cardinal Newman on the occasion of his death:

"In the grave, whither thou goest."

O weary Champion of the Cross, lie still:
  Sleep thou at length the all-embracing sleep:
  Long was thy sowing day, rest now and reap:
Thy fast was long, feast now thy spirit's fill.
Yea, take thy fill of love, because thy will
  Chose love not in the shallows but the deep:
  Thy tides were springtides, set against the neap
Of calmer souls: thy flood rebuked their rill.
Now night has come to thee--please God, of rest:
  So some time must it come to every man;
  To first and last, where many last are first.
Now fixed and finished thine eternal plan,
  Thy best has done its best, thy worst its worst:
Thy best its best, please God, thy best its best.

Thirty years ago, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an official letter to the Archbishop of Birmingham, Maurice Couve de Murville, remarking on the centenary of Newman's death:

At the approach of the first Centenary of the death of John Henry Newman and in response to your kind invitation, I gladly associate myself with the celebrations that mark this event in England and indeed in many countries throughout the world. The memory of the great Cardinal’s noble life and his copious writings seem to touch the minds and hearts of many people today with a freshness and relevance that has scarcely faded with the passing of a century.

The Centenary year coincides with the beginning of a period of profound change in world events. This period has begun with new prospects for genuine freedom and signs of a renewed awareness of the need to build life, both individual and social, on the solid foundation of unfailing respect for the human person and his inalienable God-given dignity. To all searching minds in this present historical context, Newman’s voice speaks with a timely message.

Newman’s long life shows him to have been an ardent disciple of truth. The unfolding of his career confirms the single-heartedness of his aims as expressed in the following words which he made his own: "My desire hath been to have Truth for my chiefest friend, and no enemy but error" (J. H. Newman The Via Media, London 1911, vol. 1, pp. XII-XIII). In periods of trial and suffering he persevered with confidence, knowing that time was on the side of truth.

Newman’s quest for the truth led him to search for a voice that would speak to him the authority of the living Christ. His example holds a lasting appeal for all sincere scholars and disciples of truth. He urges them to keep asking the deeper, more basic questions about the meaning of life and of all human history; not to be content with a partial response to the great mystery that is man himself; to have the intellectual honesty and moral courage to accept the light of truth, no matter what personal sacrifice it may involve. Above all, Newman is a magnificent guide for all those who perceive that the key, the focal point and the goal of all human history is to be found in Christ (Cfr. Gaudium et Spes, 10) and in union with him in that community of faith, hope and charity, which is his holy Church, through which he communicates truth and grace to all (Cfr. Lumen Gentium, 8).

That same year, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger made a presentation in Rome commenting on Newman's influence in his life and especially on Newman's presentation of conscience and authority:

Newman had become a convert as a man of conscience; it was his conscience that led him out of the old ties and securities into the world of Catholicism, which was difficult and strange for him. But this way of conscience is everything except a way of self-sufficient subjectivity: it is a way of obedience to objective truth.

The second step in Newman's lifelong journey of conversion was overcoming the subjective evangelical position in favour of an understanding of Christendom based on the objectivity of dogma. In this connection I find a formulation from one of his early sermons to be especially significant today:

"True Christendom is shown... in obedience and not through a state of consciousness. Thus, the whole duty and work of a Christian is made up of these two parts, Faith and Obedience; "looking unto Jesus' (Heb 2: 9)... and acting according to His will.... I conceive that we are in danger, in this day, of insisting on neither of these as we ought; regarding all true and careful consideration of the Object of faith as barren orthodoxy, technical subtlety... and... making the test of our being religious to consist in our having what is called a spiritual state of heart...".

In this context some sentences from The Arians of the Fourth Century, which may sound rather astonishing at first, seem important to me: "...to detect and to approve the principle on which... peace is grounded in Scripture; to submit to the dictation of truth, as such, as a primary authority in matters of political and private conduct; to understand... zeal to be prior in the succession of Christian graces to benevolence".

Throughout the last day of his 2010 visit to Scotland and England (September 19), Pope Benedict XVI commented on various aspects of Newman's life during the Beatification Mass and at each of the concluding events.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

From the propers for his feast in the Catholic Dioceses of England and Wales on October 9:

O God, who bestowed on the Priest Blessed John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church; graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fulness of your truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Christina Rossetti, RIP

The Anglo-Catholic, Tractarian, Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti died on December 29, 1894. The Poetry Foundation describes her religious and poetic inspirations:

Caught up in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement when it reached London in the 1840s, the Rossettis shifted from an Evangelical to an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and this outlook influenced virtually all of Christina Rossetti’s poetry. She was also influenced by the poetics of the Oxford Movement, as is documented in the annotations and illustrations she added to her copy of John Keble’s The Christian Year (1827) and in her reading of poetry by Isaac Williams and John Henry Newman. For more than twenty years, beginning in 1843, she worshiped at Christ Church, Albany Street, where services were influenced by the innovations emanating from Oxford. The Reverend William Dodsworth, the priest there until his conversion to Catholicism in 1850, assumed a leading role as the Oxford Movement spread to London. In addition to coming under the religious influence of prominent Tractarians such as Dodsworth, W. J. E. Bennett, Henry W. Burrows, and E. B. Pusey, Rossetti had close personal ties with Burrows and Richard Frederick Littledale, a High Church theologian who became her spiritual adviser. The importance of Rossetti’s faith for her life and art can hardly be overstated. More than half of her poetic output is devotional, and the works of her later years in both poetry and prose are almost exclusively so. The inconstancy of human love, the vanity of earthly pleasures, renunciation, individual unworthiness, and the perfection of divine love are recurring themes in her poetry.

As this site shows, she wrote several poems for Advent and Christmastide, through to Candlemas, the traditional end of the 40 days of Christmas. One of the most familiar is called "A Christmas Carol" but we know it as "In the Bleak Midwinter":

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
  Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
  When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
  A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
  Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim
  Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
  And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
  Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
  Which adore.


  May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
  Throng'd the air,
But only His mother
  In her maiden bliss
Worshipped her Beloved
  With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
  I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
  I would do my part,--
Yet what I can I give Him,
  Give my heart.

Remember that today is also the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, and of Blessed William Howard, martyrs.

James Collinson, PRB, RIP

James Collinson was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (the PRB), who died on January 24, 1881. He was a follower of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement and almost married Christina Rossetti. Collinson left the PRB, as this website contends, over religious issues. He was a convert to Catholicism--but returned to the Church of England when he was going to marry Christina--who then returned to the Catholic Church and even studied for the priesthood as a Jesuit at Stonyhurst. He left his seminary studies and married, and continued to paint religious subjects and what are termed genre studies. The same website provides many details about Collinson's life and works.

His painting of the "Renunciation of St. Elizabeth of Hungary" probably represents his Pre-Raphaelite period best:

The bright colors, the architectural and textual detail, the dramatic scene and scale, and religious subject are all PRB traits.

May he rest in peace.

Tonight at the Sisters of Sophia Meeting

The topic tonight is Christina Rossetti. More info here and here!

A Better Resurrection:

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

King's College Chapel, Cambridge

The choirs at King's College Chapel are preparing for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols this Saturday, Christmas Eve:

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is the Christmas Eve service held in King's College Chapel. The Festival was introduced in 1918 to bring a more imaginative approach to worship. It was first broadcast in 1928 and is now broadcast to millions of people around the world.

The service includes carols and readings from the Bible. The opening carol is always 'Once in Royal David's City', and there is always a new, specially commissioned carol.

This year's commissioned carol is a setting of Christina Rossetti's 'Christmas Eve' by Tansy Davies - see the news story about it.

King's College and the Chapel were founded by King Henry VI. Work on the chapel continued during the Yorkist reigns of Edward IV and Richard III, but much of the work, especially the stained glass, was completed by Henry VIII.

Here is the text of the Rossetti Poem:

Christmas Eve
Christmas hath a darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,
Birds that sing and bells that ring;
Heaven hath answering music
For all Angels soon to sing:
Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Remember that the BBC broadcasts the Festival.

Christina Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and Catholicism

Christina Rossetti, the pre-Raphaelite poet and sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the movement's founders, was born on December 5, 1830. She is best known for her book of poetry Goblin Market and Other Poems, published in 1862 and for two Christmas Carols: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas":

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

She was engaged for a time to the artist James Collinson, who like her was an Anglo-Catholic--but then in 1850, they broke off the engagement when he became a Catholic. This site provides some background to the connections between the Pre-Raphaelite and Tractarian movements in Rossetti's poetry:

The resemblances between Rossetti's poem and Tractarian religious values have been convincingly enumerated and to some extent elaborated by Raymond Chapman, George B. Tennyson, and, in less detail, Georgina Battiscombe. Chapman observes Tractarian influence in the sacramental emphasis of those poems by Rossetti that literally or metaphorically employ motifs of baptism, communion, and marriage; and those that stress the value of virginity, the need for obedience, or the inevitability of guilt and the desirability of penitence. He remarks upon her concern with the self as individual, citing Newman's insistence that "God beholds [us] individually." Further, Chapman suggests a direct connection between Tractarianism and Rossetti's "attraction to the conventual life"; her veneration of St. Augustine; her interest in good works and social reform; her insistence upon self-sacrifice, self-denial, and self-abnegation; her uses of typological symbolism; and even her strong sense of heaven as a reality, a sense that is counterpointed by a Puseyite quest for "total union with Christ" (Faith and Revolt, 175-96, passim.). Tennyson similarly determines that Rossetti's uses of typology, nature imagery, and liturgical forms are characteristically Tractarian, as are her poems based upon the Church calendar, those inspired by acts of prayer, those that yearn. for oneness with God, and, finally, those that demon [68/69] strate the viability of poetry itself — as a mode of artistic discourse — in "seeking deity" (VDP, 200-203).

Such direct connections between Rossetti's art and Tractarianism become more convincing in light of the significant "hard" evidence that she was attracted to works by members of the Oxford Movement. Such evidence includes her elegiac sonnet on Newman (Works, 280); her possession of his Dream of Gerontius; and her hand-illustrated and underlined copy of The Christian Year by Keble. (8) Though, according to William Michael Rossetti, Christina "thought nothing of Keble as a poet" (Bell, 335), she clearly did admire the work of Isaac Williams, whom she quoted (on the value of auricular confession) to Dante Rossetti in a letter of 1881 (FL, 103), mentioned admiringly in her preface to Seek and Find, and remarked upon repeatedly in her letters. Also crucial in this connection is Rossetti's religious tutelage at the hands of the Revs. William Dodsworth and W J. E. Bennett, along with Canon Burrows, all of whom had close relations with Pusey and the Tractarian movement.