Tonight: Candlelight Mass at St. Paul's Chapel at WSU: Memorial of Saint John Henry Newman

I am so happy to be able to attend a Mass for the memorial of Saint John Henry Newman in St. Paul's University Parish at WSU, my alma mater, tonight--a candlelight Mass, no less! The Mass is scheduled for 8 p.m. Central time.

In case you, dear reader, are in the USA and not a member of, nor have access to a parish in the Anglican Ordinariate here, the prayers and readings are available from the Website of the Liturgy Office of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales.

Last November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops joined the bishops in England and Wales to ask Pope Francis to declare Saint John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church, by a vote of 240 to two (no details on why two voted against). The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales had asked them to support this cause, as they had the bishops' conferences in Scotland and Ireland, who also complied.

I hope I live to see it announced and then to see his feast day added as a Memorial (not an optional memorial) on the USCCB's liturgical calendar. In England and Wales October 9 is celebrated as a Feast now (with the Gloria recited or sung at Mass). There were already three optional memorials on October 9 (St. Denis and Companions, St. John Leonardi, and St. Paulinus of York, an English saint) before his canonization in 2019, meaning that either the Weekday of Ordinary Time, or the memorial of one of those three saints, could be celebrated. The English Bishops moved those three optional memorials to October 10 to make room for Newman's Feast on October 9. (You might recall that Newman died on August 11, 1890, which was already the Memorial of Saint Clare of Assisi, so his feast was scheduled on the date of his reception into the Catholic Church in 1845.)

I'm not going to be greedy enough to propose his feast as a Feast in the USA, but as the Memorial, thus the only feast to be celebrated on October 9--and that St. Denis and St. John Leonardi be moved as optional memorials on October 10.

I propose that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops do something similar to make room for Newman on our Liturgical Calendar and offer four reasons, in ascending order of importance. 

First:

Newman as a Model for Conversion: Especially thinking of the many American converts, especially from the Episcopalian church, who have been influenced by Saint John Henry Newman. Like the late Thomas Howard, Holly Ordway, Father Dwight Longenecker, Deacon Scott Carson, Monsignor Jeffrey Stinson, etc., etc., many have attested to Newman's influence on them. Just peruse the stories collected on the Coming Home Network website and you'll see what he has meant to converts in the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States.

Second: 

Newman and the New Evangelization: After teaching a graduate class on Newman and the New Evangelization for our local Newman University during two of three past two summers (and I might do so again in 2025), I'm convinced that he is an excellent patron saint for this project, which includes the Eucharistic Revival, to renew the faith of Catholics, particularly the laity. 

Newman offers many insights into how to revive and re-enforce Catholics' belief in what they believe and what the Church teaches, and to integrate it more firmly in their lives. He encouraged both growth of knowledge of the truths of the Catholic Faith and the actions that demonstrated that knowledge and belief. 

Third: 

The Newman Centers at secular universities in the USA: Since the first Newman Club was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893--just three years after his death!--Newman Centers at secular universities have provided students with Holy Mass and the other Sacraments, continuing religious education, social activities, a place a study, etc.

So Saint John Henry Newman has had an influence in the USA since the late 19th century through these campus centers for Catholics, even though not all of them still use his name. I attended the Newman Center at Wichita State University and learned about Saint John Henry Newman there (it now does not use his name, but that's still the way I think of it!).

Fourth: 

Newman's Miracles

Both the miracle accepted for his Beatification in 2010, and the miracle accepted for his Canonization in 2019 occurred in the United States of America, and both of them through the influence of EWTN! Deacon Jack Sullivan and Melissa Villalobos prayed for Newman's intercession in their needs because they'd watched a program about Newman with the late Father Ian Ker as the featured guest!

Finally, I do have a very personal reason for this proposal: after studying the works of Saint John Henry Newman since I first learned about him as a college sophomore, writing about him, teaching about him, growing more devoted to him along with my late husband Mark, and praying for his intercession, I'd like to attend a daily Mass on his feast day on October 9--when it doesn't conflict with Sunday's Solemnity of course--on a regular basis.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Photo of John Henry Newman by Herbert Rose Barraud (1845-1896)

Duccio's "Maesta" in Siena

One hot Kansas summer some 40 years ago, I took a summer school class on Medieval and Renaissance Art at Wichita State University. We met in a darkened amphitheater in McKnight Art Center with slides projected on the screen above and in front of us. Yes, slides! Kodachrome slides, I presume. Mira Merriman, the late great scholar, told me I had an unfair advantage over other students because I was Catholic! When I heard Elizabeth Lev talk about her book on Counter-Reformation Art and the Church last summer at Newman University, I thought of Professor Merriman.

We discussed at least one other Duccio Madonna with its early Renaissance attempts at perspective and dimension--and also the understanding that the image/painting itself was not the object of worship, but an image to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, thank her for prayers answered, and inspire veneration of her as the Mother of God (that's where my "unfair advantage" came in!).

But on this date, 708 years ago, Duccio's great altarpiece Maesta was brought in procession to the Duomo of Siena. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the event and the impact this painting would have, on Duccio's career and religious art:

But it was in 1311 that Duccio achieved his principal work, the glory of which is destined to remain traditional, the great reredos for the high altar of the Siena cathedral. This panel, removed in the fifteenth century, may now be seen in the museum of the Opera del Duomo. The day of its installation was observed as a public feast; shops were closed and bells were rung and the people of the city, carrying lighted candles, solemnly escorted the picture from the artist's residence at the Porta Stalloreggi to the cathedral. This painting was indeed a national masterpiece and in this regard is comparable only to the reredos by Van Eyck in Flemish painting. The two sides represent the two Testaments of the school. The back comprises twenty-six scenes from the life of Jesus between the entry into Jerusalem and the Ascension. The steps, now taken apart, were decorated with twenty other scenes representing Christ's childhood, and His miracles, and the life of the Virgin. In fact, the theme was the same as that treated by Giotto in 1305 in the Arena of Padua. But Duccio consulted Byzantine formularies only, and his compositions resemble the famous miniatures of the "Evangelistarium" of Rossano, or those of the great Benedictine school of Mont' Amiata. However, apart from his perfect taste in colour and in style, Duccio excelled in the essentially Greek elegance of his portrayal of ordinary life. He abounds in genre pictures as pure as some of the selections in the Anthology. The scene of "Peter before the High-Priest", the dialogue of the holy women with the angel at the Sepulchre, and the "Pilgrims of Emmaus" are models of poetic conception expressed in a familiar, true-to-life, lyric fashion. On the front of the great panel is the "Madonna Maestà" (Majesty), which is in reality the "Madonna de' Ruccellai" more amply, richly, and harmoniously developed. Never did Byzantine painting attain greater plasticity of expression. But here the form is animated by a new sentiment, a tenderness that manifests itself in the distich engraved on the step of the Virgin's throne: --

MATER SANCTA DEI, SIS CAUSSA SENIS REQUIEI
SIS DUCCIO VITA, TE QUIA PINXIT ITA. (Holy Mother of God, give peace unto Siena; obtain for me that, as I have painted Thee so fair, I may live eternally.)

[The reredos of Van Eyck in Flemish painting referred to above is The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb--I always wanted to see it in person in Ghent but Mark and I did not get to travel to Belgium a third time!]

At Phaidon.com, there's a post with a curiously inaccurate title "The altarpiece that helped art break away from the church". Since the Catholic Church continued to be the major patron of art and as patron exerted influence on what was created and how it was created in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance--through to the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation--that assertion is a stretch. It's a stretch that's not supported by this sentence:

This event was as (sic) more a religious event than an artistic one, though perhaps this distinction would have been less clear in the minds of that crowd, as artistic creation was so closely allied to the church at this point.

It's more accurate to say that Duccio's Maesta altarpiece demonstrates a shift away from Byzantine iconography. That's really what the article conveys as it concludes:

Maestà may look stilted in comparison to later works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael yet by shifting away from the stiffer Byzantine styles, Duccio showed the way for these later artists.

Nevertheless, it's a wondrous religious and artistic event we remember seven centuries later. The sad note is that the altarpiece is not in situ at the Duomo, but parts of it are scattered around the world in different museums!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

May Mira Merriman rest in peace.

Image Credit (public domain): detail of the Maesta

More and More More: Coincidentally?

So on Saturday, March 1, my husband and I had to watch Wichita State University's last home game of the 2013-2014 season on ESPN. In case you don't know it, our alma mater just concluded a perfect season, 31 wins and 0 losses. They are on their way to St. Louis for the Missouri Valley Conference tournament and need to beat three teams to win that championship too--they have already won the Missouri Valley regular season. They've already beaten every team in the conference twice, home and away, so we are confident they can do it again--and then off to the NCAA March Madness.

After watching the game, I needed to run an errand to Eighth Day Books because my cake stand was still there. I'd left the cake remaining from the February 21 GKC meeting for weekend staff and shoppers to enjoy, hadn't had time to pick it up once the cake was eaten, and wanted to bake another cake. Business was slow at Eighth Day Books; perhaps other shoppers had been watching the game. To support my local bookseller, I bought this Vintage Spiritual Classics edition of works by St. Thomas More. I plan to read The Sadness of Christ during Lent.

Thomas More is perhaps most familiar to us from his courageous struggle with Henry VIII, unforgettably portrayed in Robert Bolt’s classic, A Man for All Seasons. But that final struggle, which ended in his execution for treason, was only the crowning act in a life that he had devoted to God long before.

In the first selection in decades made for the general reader from his collected works, this volume traces More’s journey of moral conviction in his own words and writings. Drawing on a variety of More’s late writings–the extraordinary “Tower Works,” written in prison, his poignant last letters to his daughter Margaret, and his poems, private prayers and devotional works–this collection will provide even readers lacking a background in Renaissance humanism or history with a rich introduction to a startlingly modern man of spiritual principle. Also included is the famous “Life of Sir Thomas More,” written by his son-in-law, William Roper.

Home again and the cake in the oven, I turn on TCM, and there's A Man for All Seasons! And then, looking back at the book I just bought, I read the Preface by Father Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. in which he rightly points out that Robert Bolt misrepresented St. Thomas More's view of conscience. Timing!

My late father had a saying, "If dog, rabbit", usually to describe why something didn't happen. In this case, something so wonderfully coincidental or even serendipitous wouldn't have come together if I hadn't wanted to bake a cake. "If cake, More"?

Authors at Eighth Day Books

On Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1, I attended two book readings and signings at Eighth Day Books during the store's Spring/Summer sale. The two authors were very different, as was their path to publication and their means of publication.

The first book, by Dr. Philip Gaunt, a professor at Wichita State University and former chair of the Elliott School of Communication there, was The Blane Game:

When minds work together to save the planet, save oil, and prevent war, strange things happen. Like communication with aliens, telepathic communication, and even potential war. When Mike realizes he can hear people's thoughts it's not long until he's contacted by the U.S. government to participate in a top-secret project to contact aliens. Not knowing what's going on with him, Mike agrees. In Russia, Katrina works alongside a group of scientists who are trying to do the same. Little does either country know, they're racing to answer the same question: is communication with aliens possible? Time is of the essence in this suspenseful novel. Since both countries want to be the first to make this discovery, Mike and Katrina are pushed to their limits. After Mike makes contact with Sergei Brebin, a Russian employee, telepathically thinking he's an alien, he realizes the Russians are on the same search. The men become friends and begin to exchange information in hopes of figuring out what their countries really want from the aliens, when Brebin is killed.Realizing this covert operation may be about much more than alien communication, Mike investigates, realizing each country is out for its own greed and is willing to destroy anyone that gets in the way. Trying to reach aliens again, Mike meets Katrina. The two become friends, and realize it's in their best interest to leave their positions. Mike rushes to find Katrina and save the woman he's come to love, but can he make it to her before the Russians find out she's derailed from their plan? Find out in the Blane Game.

Professor Gaunt chose to work with Tate Publishing in Mustang, Oklahoma (and you'll not that the company website refers to the recent tornados in Oklahoma). Tate has an interesting business model:

Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC, is a Christian-based, family-owned, mainline publishing organization with a mission to discover unknown authors. We combine unknown authors' undiscovered potential with Tate Publishing's unique approach to publishing and provide them with the highest quality books and the most inclusive benefits package available.

Tate Publishing was formed after Founders Richard & Rita Tate published their first book with a traditional, mainline royalty publishing company. They soon found that after investing many years of their lives into their work, it was no longer theirs. The rights were now the publisher's, and the majority of the royalties were going to the publisher. That's when the Tates set out to redefine what a mainline royalty publisher should be. Remember, the most important step to get started is to submit your manuscript. In 2010, we accepted only a single-digit percentage of authors who submitted manuscripts for publication.

At Tate Publishing & Enterprises, we believe your work is just that—your work. We believe that you should make the most money from your project. You will retain all rights to your manuscript, PLUS retain the highest royalties in the business from your sales. That's the way it should be! And that's the way we do business.

Tate offers editing and creative services, etc.

The second book, by Melvin D. Epp, was The Petals of a Kansas Sunflower: A Mennonite Diaspora, published by Wipf & Stock:

Rather than pledging allegiance to the military effort as dictated by Prussian law in 1867, many devout Anabaptists deemed it prudent to become pioneers in Kansas. The year was 1876 and odd numbered sections of railroad land were being marketed by the Santa Fe across Kansas. Towns developed around train depots; local shopping became available. Marie Harder Epp was born in America to these relocated Anabaptists. She was a Kansas Mennonite farmer and also the village poet. Her poems, written for oral delivery, tell the story of life in Holland and West Prussia following the Reformation, the relocation to Kansas, and the creation of a church community on the tall grass prairies. A church was organized to focus these hard-working Germans on divine realities as they buried their dead, married their young, and dealt with the harsh prairie winds. Marie's poems also describe the changeover from buggies to cars, from German to English, and from isolation to global outreach. With time, the Anabaptists learned through cultural adaptation that they could be both staunch Mennonites and also patriotic Americans.

Wipf & Stock also has a different model (located in Oregon):

From the land of great microbrews and towering Douglas firs, Wipf and Stock Publishers is the underdog team, a ragtag bunch who arrive to work with mud still on our shoes from the weekend ride or hike. Committed to writing that honors the imagination, intellect, and heart, our model is simple yet provocative: with a list as diverse as our northwest landscape, we publish based on the merits of content rather than marketability. We have no agenda and are shamelessly unapologetic about what we like: relationships, good beer, fine books, and enough coffee to keep us moving. We work hard to bring relationships back to the focus of publishing, because we believe in the value of voice.

Wipf & Stock books, unfortunately, are very expensive (print on demand). Although I enjoyed the reading and the history Mr. Epps presented, I could not fit a $54.00 paperback book into my monthly budget!!

But, never fear, I did support my local bookseller, purchasing Marilynne Robinson's When I Was a Child I Read Books:

Ever since the 1981 publication of her stunning debut, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist (her second novel, Gilead, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize) but also a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism is respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as "a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit". In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.

In "Austerity as Ideology" she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challengin. In "Open Thy Hand Wide" she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child" one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.

And, Praying To Our Lord Jesus Christ: Prayers and Meditations Through the Centuries by: Benedict J. Groeschel:

Personal devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ is an essential component of authentic Christian spirituality. In recent decades skeptical approaches to theology and Scripture have tended to diminish our awareness of the need for personal devotion to Our Savior. This leaves people with a feeling of emptiness and isolation.

Fr. Benedict has made this anthology of profound prayers, drawn from all of Christian history, available to those who experience a hunger for devotion. Beautifully illustrated with classic art, this book will be a valuable companion for personal prayer, for times of recollection, and even for those times of critical spiritual need.

Readers wishing to grow in their devotion to Christ and increase their love for Him will find the prayers in this book helpful and inspiring. Ranging from the prayers of early Church martyrs and Fathers and including those of mystics and theologians, it provides an introduction to the Church's vast patrimony of twenty centuries of devotion to Jesus Christ. Fr. Groeschel adds his own insights throughout the book.

This book, combining profound prayers with wonderful spiritual insights and inspiring art—makes a beautiful gift for all who would seek to know and love Our Lord Jesus better. Illustrated.

More about the Newman School of Catholic Thought

After my post on Father Ian Ker's upcoming visit to Wichita for the Cardinal Newman Week lecture at Newman University, I wanted to share more about the Newman School of Catholic Thought. These conferences, held at the Newman Centers at Wichita State University and Pittsburg State University during the 1970's and then revived at WSU during the 1990's, and now moribund.

The first Newman School of Catholic Thought I attended had been organized by St. Paul's Parish-Newman Center chaplain Father Joseph Gorentz. He was not able to be there, however, because he was hospitalized with brain cancer. It was held in January of 1979 and Bishop David Maloney from the Diocese of Wichita spoke briefly at the beginning of the five days of conferences by four great speakers. Father Stephen Almagno, Mr. Lyman Stebbins, founder of Catholics United for the Faith, Dr. John Crosby, then at the University of Dallas--these three presented on aspects of Newman's life and works; Father Charles Taylor spoke about the Newman Center movement in the United States.

Those five days were probably the most formative of my life, setting me in the direction of trying to obtain the best liberal arts education possible at a secular university without a theology department (pace Newman's Idea of a University model), informing my dedication to studying Church history and understanding Church doctrine and dogma to be faithful to it, and sparking my  interest in the English Reformation. From those January 1979 days to the upcoming Cardinal Newman Week lecture, I've attended many presentations about Blessed John Henry Newman--and given a few myself.

Two high school friends (who were attending the University of Kansas) and I went to Pittsburg, Kansas for a Newman School of Catholic Thought at the St. Pius X Newman Center there one summer a couple of years later, and then the Newman Schools endured a hiatus for a time. When I worked at the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies at then Kansas Newman College, I helped organize a Newman School in 1997 with Dean Hudson, the Visiting Chair of the Institute, and David B. Warner, then with the Denver Archdiocese (who has since died). Perhaps the Newman School of Catholic Thought will revive again at WSU!