Newman and the Liturgy: From Withey to Lang and Velez

As noted recently, I'd dipped into Donald A. Withey's John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (London: Sheed & Ward, 1992), and used some information gleaned from it to comment on Newman's friendship with Isaac Williams. Then I finished the book and turned to Father Juan Velez's excellent survey of Newman's life and thought to read an essay on Newman and the liturgy there.

Donald A. Withey, who served on the Committee for Pastoral Liturgy of the Bishop's Conference of England and Wales and other liturgical organizations, also wrote Why Receive the Chalice? (1990) and Catholic Worship: An Introduction to Liturgy (1990/2002), and edited Adult Initiation (1989).

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican, he is focused on Newman's interests in the celebration of the prayers and liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer and his use of Roman (Catholic) Breviary and involvement in projects to translate and publish it for Anglican use. In chapter nine Withey considers Newman's conversion in light of his understanding of the liturgy and his use of Roman Breviary, especially in his Littlemore retreat while writing the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

The Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations 

Acknowledgement

Preface

Part One: Newman, The Liturgy and the Roman Breviary

One. Beginnings

Two. Newman and the Liturgy

Three. Newman and the Breviary

Four. The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One

Five. The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three

Six. The Sarum Breviary Project

Seven. The Breviary Offices at Littlemore

Eight. Newman's Writings on the Daily Office

Nine. Outcome: 'This is a Religion'

Part Two: Newman's Translations

Ten. Ten Translations

Eleven. Notes on the Translations

Appendices

One. [Liturgical] Tracts for the Times

Two. [List of] Newman's Sermons of Liturgical Interest

Three. Newman's Two Prefaces to Hymnae Ecclesiae

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Withey quotes often from the letters between Newman and others working on the Roman Breviary translation project one through three; he had access to the Birmingham Oratory Archives in the days when not all of Newman's letters and diaries were available in print. 

The Tractarian interest in the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer began with lectures by Charles Lloyd, Regius Professor of Theology and later Bishop of Oxford. In 1825 he published Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII. Newman had attended his private lectures and after Bishop Lloyd died on May 31, 1829, Newman wrote to his sister Harriet (6/4/1829):

I had the greatest esteem, respect, and love for him as a most warm-hearted, frank, vigorous-minded and generous man. His kindness for me I cannot soon forget. He brought me forward, made me known, spoke well of me, and gave me confidence in myself. I have before my mind various pictures of what passed in his lecture-room; how he used to fix his eyes on me when he was pleased, and never put his Ch. Ch. friends unduly forward. I wish he ever had been aware how much I felt his kindness. [Letters and Correspondence: 1827-1829]

The other great influence on the Tractarians regarding liturgy was Origines Liturgicæ by William Palmer of Worcester College (not the William Palmer of Magdalen College).

Newman restored elements of the Prayer Book liturgy at both St. Mary's in Oxford and St. Mary's-St. Nicholas' in Littlemore, including Morning and Evening Prayer read aloud in church and Sunday Communion services. Withey also credits Newman with "introducing the nineteenth century Church of England to office hymns" (p. 91)

In the chapter on the Sarum Breviary translation project I learned that:

Because of the conditions in sixteenth century England [that is, Recusancy, Penal Laws, Martyrdoms, etc], no attempt was made by Roman Catholics to secure the continued use of the Sarum Breviary under the provisions of the the Bull Quod a nobis, which allowed for missals and breviaries with at least two hundred years of continuous use to be continued to be used. (p. 68)

Perhaps the last chapter was the best: "Outcome: 'This is a Religion", in which Withey traces the three phases of Newman's progress to the Catholic Church and the "part played by his understanding of the Liturgy, and especially by his encounter with the Roman Breviary." (p. 102)

According to Withey's schema the first phase was "his search for the identity of the Church of England." (p. 102) At that time he believed that the Church of England was a part of the Church Catholic, one, holy, and apostolic (Credo!) as the Via Media. The second phase, through his study of the Fathers of the Church and the Anglican divines revealed to him that it might not be that Via Media at all--the Monophysite heresy and Wiseman's Dublin Review article, with the echoing refrain "securus judicat orbis terrarum"--contributed to those doubts. And third, when Newman began to test the Roman Catholic Church's claim to be that Church Catholic he sought: that's when studying Saint Athanasius and the Arian heresy mirrored what he'd found in his study of the Monophysite heresy: Rome was the One upholding the true doctrine of the Incarnation! (pp 104-105) 

And the role of the liturgy--although barely mentioned in the Development of Doctrine--was that, according to Withey, Newman saw the Church "as an integrated body, made up of interrelated elements, one of the most important of which was the sacramental principle" (p. 107). In some ways, Withey anticipates some of Father Ian Ker's argument in Newman on Vatican II (OUP: 2014), but in such compressed form that it cannot compare with Father Ker's analysis.

Once Newman--as Chesterton would later say--started looking at the Catholic Church from the inside through the Roman Breviary and being fair to the Catholic Church by studying the Fathers of the Church and their times, he came to assent to the Truth  and to become a member of the "one true fold of Christ".

I appreciated Dr. Withey's detail and narration and would recommend this book to those interested in this aspect of Newman's life.

Turning to chapter 21 in A Guide to John Henry Newman His Life and Thought, (which is now available in paperback!) "From the Book of Common Prayer to the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Roman Breviary" by Father Uwe Michael Lang (of the London Oratory) and Father Juan R. Velez (of Opus Dei and the editor of the book), here are the chapter headings:

Anglican Liturgy in the Early Nineteenth Century

    --Important for context and the most essential liturgical ideas in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer: there is no Sacrifice re-represented in the Communion Service and the rejection of Transubstantiation

Newman: From Evangelical to Anglo-Catholic Views

    --Highlights Newman's "understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice. For Newman, it became evident that the altar (thusiasterion) for the early Christians implied a sacrifice (prosphora) and sacrifice implied priesthood." (p. 379)

Newman and the Tractarians: Underlying Principles

    --Includes this discussion of the Ritualism movement in the later stages of the Tractarian movement (see John Shelton Reed's Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism from Vanderbilt University Press)

Newman at Littlemore and Rediscovering Catholic Tradition

    --Not much added to Withey's discussion of Littlemore and the Roman Breviary, etc

Newman as a Catholic Priest

    --Notes Newman's comfort in the Eucharistic Presence of Christ in the Tabernacle; mentions Newman's aims in building Our Lady Seat of Wisdom for the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, its Byzantine/Romanesque style.

Catholic Sense of the Liturgy

    Cites Alcuin Reid's The Organic Development of the Liturgy's two pages (pp 67-69) on Newman as exceptional; otherwise comments on Romano Guardini's Spirit of the Liturgy (not much Newman)

Conclusion

    --"Once he became Catholic, he truly found peace and serenity in the liturgy, even in the midst of severe external trials, and his prayerful dedication to the Church's divine worship made his priestly life exemplary." (p. 397)

Suggested Reading

Fathers Lang and Velez highlight Withey's book as the only monograph study on Newman and the Liturgy and note that neither the Oxford nor Cambridge guides to Newman contain essays on that subject and in fact, there are few studies of Newman and the Liturgy. One they do not mention is here by Father Guy Nichols of the Birmingham Oratory which highlights Newman's contributions to the liturgy at that church, architecturally and musically. Father Lang contributed this article to the Adoremus Bulletin.

There you have it: some notes on Newman and the Liturgy as an Anglican/Tractarian and as a Catholic/Oratorian priest.

Another Tractarian: Isaac Williams and Saint John Henry Newman

The Newman Review of the National Institute of Newman Studies highlights Saint John Henry Newman's Tractarian friendship with Isaac Williams. According to Lawrence Gregory:

The Rev. Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a contemporary of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) at Trinity College, Oxford. The son of a Welsh lawyer, he was ordained a priest in Anglican Orders in 1829, serving first as curate at Windrush, Gloucestershire. Williams returned to Oxford in 1831 after being elected a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity and became the Dean of his College in 1833 and vice-president in 1841. From 1836 he also served as assistant curate to Newman at Littlemore.

He collaborated on the Lyra Apostolica and as a Tractarian and contributed Tract 80, “On Reserve in Communicating, Religious Knowledge,” which he concluded with Tract 87. Williams also wrote Tract 86 “Indications of a superintending Providence in the preservation of the Prayer-book and in the changes which it has undergone.”

The controversy about Tract 90 meant that Williams did not succeed John Keble as Professor of Poetry as expected. In 1842, he left St. Mary's in Oxford and Littlemore, married Caroline Champernowne and the couple moved to Bisley, Gloucestershire, where he worked as a curate to Thomas Keble, John's brother. Williams became very ill in 1846 and was not able to continue in parish work. He and his wife to moved to Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, where his sister Jane and her husband, Sir George Prevost, another Tractarian, held the living. 

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (Sheed & Ward: 1992), Donald A. Withey suggests that Newman and Williams did not always agree--even though they were good friends and remained friends, even after Newman became a Catholic--on certain projects members of the Oxford Movement were undertaking. For example, in 1838, Samuel Wood and Robert Williams, two laymen, became interested in translating, printing, and selling the Roman [Catholic] Breviary. Richard Hurrell Froude had begun praying it and others in the Movement bought copies when they were on the Continent, etc. Wood and Robert Williams were financing the project with their own money, and were asking Newman, Isaac Williams, and others to translate hymns, etc. 

Opposition to the project, which kept starting and stopping, Withey says was largely aimed at Newman and "was led by Tom Keble, Isaac Williams, and George Prevost. Tom Keble and Newman disagreed about the significance of the reformers of the sixteenth century . . . " (p. 33) Isaac, Withey notes, "admired and enjoyed a close friendship with [Newman]. However, he also had a long-standing loyalty to the Kebles dating from his undergraduate days." Withey suggests that Isaac sided with Tom Keble "against Newman" -- who was also rather diffident about the project because of the cost and the care of omitting things that were just "too" Catholic--because of any "Romanizing influence". (p. 34)

Reading about these efforts to translate and print the four volumes of the Roman Breviary in Chapter Four, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One" reminded me of how delicately the Tractarians had to proceed in their overall project to demonstrate the Apostolic basis of the Church of England. They were always walking a fine line--one step too far and they would be accused of Popery and being secretly Papist while holding Church of England benefices, offices, and livings!

In the next chapter, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three", Withey describes Isaac Williams' reactions when E.B. Pusey took up the reins of the effort in 1843. At first Isaac seemed helpful and willing to let Pusey use his translations, but because "he was then moving away from his High Church convictions towards a Low Church stance"*, working with him became more difficult. He "vacillated considerably and awkwardly before making up his mind to allow the use of the manuscripts" (pp. 58-59) 

*[Note that Withey doesn't provide any evidence of Williams' change of mind in the book and I haven't researched that aspect at all. Also note: there is no good image of the cover of Withey's book which is out of print but available. Pages 168-169 in the Notes has some particularly interesting detail about how Latin was pronounced in England in Newman's time! Sister Florella, who taught me Latin at Kapaun-Mount Carmel High School always reminded us that there weren't any "tapes" of Romans speaking Latin in the Vatican archives!]

One reason Newman himself was reluctant to see the project completed was since he had obtained the late Richard Hurrell Froude's copy of the Roman Breviary in 1836, he had been praying it daily, and it was influencing him toward "Roman Catholic" piety and prayer. Even though he tried to skip certain prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, it was becoming attractive to him. 

Isaac Williams and Newman maintained their friendship after Newman followed that attraction with assent and conversion in 1845. As Gregory notes in the Newman Review article:

The NINS Digital Collections contain 26 letters by Williams. Three are from the papers of Hurrell Froude, and 23 make up his surviving correspondence with Newman. The Newman letters begin in March 1841 at the time of the Tract 90 controversy and continue until May 1864, a few months before Williams’s death. Those from the 1840s cover discussions about the growing schism at Oxford, while those from the 1850s and 60s are of a more personal nature . . .

You may find links to articles about and works of Isaac Williams at Project Canterbury.

Image Credit (Public Domain): A portrait from the Welsh Portrait Collection at the National Library of Wales. Depicted person: Isaac Williams – Welsh writer