New Sunday Series: "Our Lady and the English Martyrs"

Last year I dedicated quite a few posts to English churches from before the Reformation and the saints and shrines they featured. Now I am changing the Sunday Shrine series to focus on English "RC" churches built after Emancipation and Restoration that are dedicated to or feature shrines to the Catholic Martyrs. I'll start today with a series of posts on churches named for "Our Lady and the English Martyrs" beginning with the parish church of that name in Cambridge, aka OLEM:

The Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, or OLEM, is situated in the heart of the city of Cambridge. An imposing example of the 19th Century Gothic Revival, it was built to the designs of Dunn & Hansom of Newcastle between 1885 and 1890, and founded solely by Mrs Yolande Marie Louise Lyne-Stephens, a former ballet dancer at the Paris Opera and Drury Lane, London, and widow of a wealthy banker. She promised to build the church on the feast of Our Lady of the Assumption, and Monsignor Christopher Scott - the first Rector - also wished to commemorate the Catholic Martyrs who died between 1535 and 1681, over thirty of whom had been in residence at the University.

Designed by architects Dunn and Hansom of Newcastle and built by the Cambridge firm of Rattee and Kett , OLEM is constructed in Casterton, Ancaster and Combe Down Stone. The church is a traditional cruciform structure in the early-decorated style with a large tower at the crossing, a polygonal apse and a west bell tower with a 65-metre spire, visible for miles around Cambridge. Quite often, it is quoted by visitors and local residents as a location point. The approximate internal dimensions of the church are: length 48 meters [156 ft] width across the aisles 16 meters [51 ft] width at the transepts 22 meters [71 ft], the height of the nave 15 meters [71ft].

Inside and over the west door stands the figure of Our Lady of the Assumption crowned with lilies and standing on the crescent moon with the vanquished serpent beneath. The west window shows the English Martyrs arranged in two principal groups, the clergy on the south side with St John Fisher in their midst and the laity on the north grouped round St Thomas More. . . .

The aisle windows were almost completely destroyed when the church was struck by a bomb on 1941, but were subsequently replaced in their original form. They epitomise the various sufferings of the English Martyrs, their being brought before the Council, racked, hung, drawn and quartered in the sight and sympathy of the faithful. The windows of the north aisle portray Carthusians, St Thomas Moore (sic), B. Margaret Pole and others, while the south aisle is made a “Fisher Aisle”, devoted to scenes from the life of St John, Cardinal Bishop of Rochester, who in so many important ways is identified with Cambridge.

Here are some photos from a Flickr photographer, focused on the stained glass windows.

Holy Week in the "Lentiest Lent I Ever Lented"

In 2015, I wrote on this blog about how much I benefit spiritually every year from attending Mass and the Good Friday Services throughout Passiontide and Holy Week:

I love being Catholic every Passiontide and Holy Week. Our Church has a series of rituals and special hymns to accompany us on the journey from Passion Sunday through Palm Sunday and the Triduum to Easter Sunday.

Then I commented near the end of the post, never thinking the day would ever come:

Also, every Holy Week when I experience these rituals, I think how horrible it would be to lose these outward representations--some are sacramentals and some are Sacraments--of the great Paschal Mystery. The Catholic people of England lost these rituals, and many others in the Sarum Use, in the sixteenth century. They were taken away in the name of preventing superstition but these rituals were not superstitious; the Church had developed these rituals to remind people of all that Jesus had done for His people, the Church.

The rituals of Holy Week were taken away because the reformers did not trust the unity between Jesus and His Church; the reformers were complicating the matter in a way that St. Joan of Arc had warned against: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they are just one thing and we shouldn't complicate the matter." Because the English reformers complicated the matter, the Catholic people of England ended up with palmless Palm Sundays, candleless Candlemases and ashless Ash Wednesdays not to mention Shrovetide without Confession and Communion without the Real Presence. So within a couple of generations, they weren't the Catholic people of England anymore and yet a few endured, suffered, survived and revived three centuries later--which is another miracle indeed.

Of course anything good can be abused; even replacing rituals with a non-ritual can be abused and even reading the Bible could be abused superstitiously. Our Christian faith is an incarnational religion that unites the human and Divine in the great mystery and miracle of Jesus and His Church, His Bride for whom He lived and died and rose and lives always. The Catholic Church, messy and sinful as we certainly are with people like me among us, displays that mystery most miraculously every Passiontide, Holy Week, and Triduum.

Both pictures provided and copyright by Mark U. Mann (c) 2013-2015; used by permission. (Holy Week afternoon at Blessed Sacrament; Easter Sunday at St. Anthony of Padua.)

I don't think we're going to have a palmless Palm Sunday in our parish, Blessed Sacrament, at least. Our pastor and parochial vicar will hand them out in a drive through after the private Masses on Saturday and Sunday!! God bless them! Father Heiman and Father Siegman will celebrate each of the service of the Holy Triduum and broadcast them on Facebook and YouTube, but none of us can attend them of course. Our Bishop, Carl Kemme, is even celebrating the Chrism Mass on Tuesday (blessed the oils at least) at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception!

God bless you all this Holy Week! 

The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In the octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and since St. Osmund of Salisbury's feast day was last Sunday (replaced by the Second Sunday of Advent, of course), it's a good idea to look at Salisbury Cathedral in the Sunday Shrine Series. Built from 1220 to 1258, it is one of those unusual cathedrals that has a unified style: Early English Gothic. Many cathedrals display a series of styles from Norman to Early Gothic to Pointed and Flamboyant, but Salisbury has only one style, which of course has been repaired and restored through the years.

It is from Salisbury that we have received the Sarum Rite, attributed in this Catholic Herald article to St. Osmund of Salisbury, William the Conqueror's Chancellor:

St Osmund (d 1099) was chaplain and then chancellor to William the Conqueror after the Norman Conquest.

If, however, his early career was dedicated principally to secular affairs, there is no question of his devotion to religion in the latter part of his life as Bishop of Salisbury.

A monk at Malmesbury called him “an orthodox bishop, a man of humility, worthy to be honoured and praised for his wisdom and holiness”.

Osmund has been held responsible for the introduction of the Sarum Rite, based on Norman models. With its elaborate attention to ceremony and its particular prayers, this Rite was widely used in southern England, Wales, Scotland and even in parts of Ireland until formally abolished by Elizabeth in 1559. Its influence, however, may still be detected in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

This program from a concert held earlier this year at New York City's Episcopalian Trinity Church, however, mentions Richard Poore, the Bishop of Salisbury who began the construction of The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1220, as an important person in the development of the Sarum Rite:

In 1220, Richard Poore, the bishop of Salisbury, began the construction of a spectacular new cathedral for his diocese. He called it “The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” known and loved today as Salisbury Cathedral.

Aside from overseeing the early years of the construction of the cathedral, Bishop Poore also devoted himself to enriching and documenting the liturgy to be carried out within it, weaving architecture and liturgy into a single fabric. Poore wrote two new volumes detailing the liturgical practice at Salisbury, the Ordinale and Consuetudinarium (which spelled out the ceremonial he planned) that carried over and elaborated on liturgical customs of the past.

Within decades, this “Sarum Use” (“Sarum” is derived from “Sarisburia,” the name the Domesday Book (1086) gives to Salisbury) had become renowned for its splendor, complexity, and —dare one say?— The polyphonic embellishments to this gorgeous ceremonial—seldom performed in church today— are some of the most exquisite beauties of any age.

More about Salisbury Cathedral from the official website, including detail about Ken Follett's novel Pillars of the Earth.

Image source.

Sunday Series: English Saints and Their Shrines

I linked to a story from The Catholic Herald about how English saints have been written out of English history, and many of those saints were first written out of English life during the Reformation era. Henry VIII reduced the number of saints' feast days and although he had gone on pilgrimage, as to Walsingham, he and his lay vice regent in charge of spiritual matters, Thomas Cromwell, had the great shrines of English saints destroyed.

The websites of the cathedrals reconstituted after the dissolution of the monasteries, however, often contain information about the saint or saints once honored there. The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban includes the story of England's first martyr and also this reflection on the effect of the Reformation and the Dissolution of the community and the cathedral:

The town's economy declined dramatically. No longer did a constant stream of pilgrims and royal visitors arrive at St Albans expecting food and lodging. No longer was each day marked by bells and prayers at the Abbey. The mayor and corporation bought the Abbey church from King Edward VI for £400 to be used as a parish church, but without the Abbot’s income to pay for repairs and without the teams of masons, carpenters and plumbers to care for it, the great church slowly declined into dilapidation. The Abbey church was now the largest parish church in the land, with only the population of a small market town to care for it. Local worthies left bequests for church maintenance but this money was only enough for urgent repairs, and in spite of several royal briefs raising larger sums, the following centuries show, in the paintings of many artists, a record of St Albans Abbey in romantic decay.

In 1570 the Lady Chapel was walled off from the rest of the church to contain the grammar school, as the original premises had been destroyed in the demolition of the conventual buildings, when the aspiring Tudor landowners came for building materials to enlarge the newly-purchased monastic farmhouses. In this county with no stone, valuable building materials were recycled. The shrines of Alban and Amphibalus were probably demolished at the same time, as their stones were used as rubble for the dividing walls.

It was not restored, even after greater damage in the late eighteenth century, until the middle of the nineteenth century. This is the first in a series of posts about these great shrines, their fall and their restitution after centuries of neglect.

Sunday Shrine Series: The Holy Name of Jesus

The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is celebrated on the Tuesday before Epiphany this week, on January 3rd. In honor of the feast, today's Sunday Shrine series post links to the "RC" Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Manchester, England. According to the Wikipedia article on this church, it was founded by Jesuits in the late 19th century, fell into disuse, and has been revived by an Oratory of St. Philip Neri in formation. Mass is celebrated ad orientem (with the priest facing the high altar, toward the east and in the same direction as the congregation) with regular celebrations of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite (aka the Traditional Latin Mass).

According to the church website:

In the sixteenth century the Spanish saint, Ignatius of Loyola founded an order called the Society of Jesus or Jesuits, who were a powerful force for the reform of the Catholic Church. They often built large churches in cities where their influence could be effective through preaching, the confessional and parochial work. They were invited to come to Manchester by the Bishop of Salford, Rt. Rev. William Turner in the late 1860’s. The foundation stone of the Holy Name was laid in 1869 and the church opened on 15th October, 1871.
The architect was a favourite of the Jesuits, Joseph Aloysius Hansom, the inventor of the cab that bears his name. The church he designed is 14th century French Gothic in style, but the plan is typical of a Jesuit city church – a broad nave, prominent pulpit and a short sanctuary with the altar near and in full view of the congregation. It is 186ft. from east to west, 112ft. from north to south and 100ft. from the floor to the inside of the vault.

The structure is brick faced inside with moulded terracotta and outside with Warwick Bridge stone. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in his introduction to the ‘South Lancashire’ volume of his ‘Buildings of England’ series wrote that the Holy Name ‘is a design of the very highest quality and of an originality nowhere demonstrative…….Hansom never again did so marvellous a church.’

The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus celebrates His naming at His circumcision--and was celebrated on various dates after Christmas by different religious orders or dioceses until extended to the universal Church in 1721. St. Bernardine of Siena and St. John of Capistrano had been the great promoters of the devotion, symbolised by the monogram IHS. In 1970 the feast was removed from the universal Roman calendar and then restored by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

"At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:10-11). Note that when that reading is proclaimed in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, we DO bend the knee during that verse!

Catholic Maryland on EWTN

Today--and all week--on EWTN:

How did Catholicism come to the United States of America? EWTN sets out to answer this question in a new eight-part mini-series “Catholic Beginnings: Maryland” that begins at 6:30 p.m. ET, Sunday, July 3 and runs through Sunday, July 10. The series, hosted by Father Charles Connor of St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., begins on St. Clements Island in Southern Maryland. Throughout the week, you will explore other famous Catholic sites such as the historic “Dove” ship, colonial St. Mary’s City and St. Inigoes, Maryland; Newtown Manor and St. Francis Xavier cemetery; St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius Churches; as well as the Carmel monastery at Port Tobacco.

As Fr. Connor notes, in this series, “we are not speaking of the Spanish settlement of Florida, which is earlier. We are not speaking of the French settlement of New England and Canada, which is earlier. We are speaking rather about the 13 colonies which became the nucleus of the United States of America.”

How many people who visit St. Clements Island today realize they are standing on the ground where the first Catholic Mass in what would become the United States was celebrated? How many realize that the first cross in what would be the U.S. was erected on this island by Jesuits, who were fleeing religious persecution in England? How many realize that the settlers, who were seeking religious freedom in the New World and granting it to others, would later be denied this freedom themselves?

If you want an overview of the history of Maryland's founding, you could read the article I wrote for OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine a few years ago:

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, the founder of the Maryland colony, had gone with the flow since his early adolescence: when he was 12 he was confirmed in the Church of England. Previously, his parents had been recusant Catholics in Yorkshire, refusing to abandon their faith. But local officials intervened and George’s Catholic education and reading ceased. After attending the University of Oxford, he rose steadily in government and supported King James I in his goal to see the Prince of Wales married to the Catholic Infanta of Spain. After the marriage negotiations failed and Calvert’s first wife died in childbirth, he announced his retirement and reversion to his childhood Catholic faith. 

Then Calvert set out to found a colony in the New World where Catholics could prove their loyalty to the monarch without renouncing their faith. Obtaining charters from James I and then his heir, Charles I, Calvert planned colonies at Avalon in Canada and then in Maryland — named for Charles’ Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria — bordering Virginia.

Although he died before the Maryland colony started, he left his son Cecilius Calvert a project for Catholics and Anglicans to live and work together in peace and prosperity. . . .

Sunday Series Post #3: The Eve of St. James

Since tomorrow is the Feast of St. James I've chosen Malmesbury Abbey for today's Sunday shrine post. The saint honored there was St. Aldhelm who wrote about St. James's missionary journeys to Spain. Compostela in Spain is of course the great site of pilgrimage to honor St. James.

Malmesbury Abbey is in Wiltshire England; it was founded as a Benedictine house in 676 A.D. by Aldhelm, a scholar and poet who was a nephew of the king of Wessex, Ine. Until its suppression in 1539 by Henry VIII, it was known as a great site of learning with an excellent library. The 12th century English historian William of Malmesbury was a monk there. He wrote his Gesta Regum Anglorum based on the Venerable Bede's model for historical writing.

The last Abbot of Malmesbury, Robert Selwyn or Frampton, surrendered with 21 monks on December 15, 1539 and they all received generous pensions. The abbey church became the parish church when Henry VIII sold the lands and buildings to one William Stumpe. During the English Civil War both Royalist and Roundhead armies occupied Malmesbury. The parish there now is very open (extremely broad church perhaps?) and well-staffed, according to the website linked above, but only uses part of the abbey complex.

St. Aldhelm was not only the Abbot of Malmesbury but also the first Bishop of Sherborne, a see which was later transferred to Salisbury, from 705 to 709 A.D. He was a poet, a writer of letters, scholarly treastises, and religious instruction. St. Aldhelm is also honored at Salisbury Cathedral.

More and more here.

Malmesbury is also famous for Elmer, the 11th century "Flying Monk"!

Prepping for Lent: Pancakes and Confession

Anna Mitchell and I decided to delay our discussion of Blessed John Henry Newman, scheduled for Monday, March 4, for a week so that we could talk about Shrovetide and Pancakes instead. Listen live about 7:50 a.m. Eastern time/6:50 a.m. Central time here--the interview will be repeated during the national EWTN hour (sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. Eastern/5:00 and 6:00 a.m. Central) on Tuesday, March 5.

We'll talk about Blessed John Henry Newman on Conscience and Authority on Monday, March 11 and continue that series through October this year.

Ash Wednesday is on March 6; Easter will be on April 21 (my late mother's birthday). The Orthodox Church will celebrate Easter on April 28 this year.

Sunday, March 3 is Quinquagesima Sunday on the 1962 Roman Rite and the Anglican Ordinariate calendars: the pre-Lenten Season of Septuagesima is nearly over. As I explained it in a blog post for the National Catholic Register last year:

Before the reform of the liturgical calendar in late 1960’s, there was a name for this transitional time: Septuagesima. For three Sundays, the Church adopted a pre-Lenten period and in parishes where the Extraordinary Form is celebrated today, those Sundays are observed. The priest wears violet vestments, the Gloria is omitted, and the Tract replaces the Alleluia before the Gospel. The loss of the Alleluia, as the liturgical scholar Dom Gueranger explains, reminds us of our situation: “During the rest of the year [the Church] loves to hear us chant the song of heaven, the sweet Alleluia; but now, she bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon . . . We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God's enemies; let us become purified by repentance . . .” . . .

The Latin names for these Sundays [Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima] refer to the approximate number of days until Easter: seventy, sixty, and fifty. These Sunday liturgies are solemn, even when the Mass is sung, because the readings emphasize that like the Israelites in Babylon, we are in exile from our true country, Heaven.

What does that have to do with pancakes and confession? As part of our preparation for Lent, including our plans for devotions, spiritual reading, corporal works of mercy, fasting and abstinence, we are thinking of both spiritual and practical matters. Our menus will change: no meat on Ash Wednesday and every Friday in Lent; fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics are weaning themselves away from meat and cheese during their preparation for Great Lent: Meatfare and then Cheesefare Sunday, eliminating not just meat flesh but all animal products from their diets, including milk, eggs, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc. No macaroni and cheese on Friday for them!

If we are preparing ourselves for what we need to give up for Lent so that we make progress in the spiritual life, we need to examine our consciences and confess our sins so we may focus on repentance and conversion.

So on Monday, March 4, we'll talk about how Shrovetide helped English Catholics before the Reformation prepare practically and spiritually for Lent.

The Miracle of Miracles in Holy Week

I love being Catholic every Passiontide and Holy Week. Our Church has a series of rituals and special hymns to accompany us on the journey from Passion Sunday through Palm Sunday and the Triduum to Easter Sunday:

~Veiling the statues
~Receiving and blessing palms
~Processing with palms
~Washing the feet of 12 men
~Stripping the Altars
~Processing with the Eucharist
~Reposing the Eucharist
~Adoration at the Altar of Repose
~The empty, silent church on Good Friday, without His Presence
~The open Tabernacle doors
~Reading the Passion
~Venerating the Cross
~Lighting the Easter Fire
~Marking and Lighting the Easter Candle
~The Exsultet
~The bells ringing when the Gloria is sung at the Easter Vigil
~The Elect receiving the Sacraments of Initiation
~Candidates receiving Confirmation and First Holy Communion
~The renewal of Baptismal promises

These are the Roman Rite rituals that I'm familiar with; I know that many of these rituals are observed in other Christian communities, but they are fundamentally Catholic rituals, and they remind me how blessed I am to be a Catholic.

Robert Royal writes in a different way about the blessings--the miracle--of being Catholic in his reflection on the greatest miracle of all, that in spite of all that Catholics and outsiders do to Jesus's Church, it endures:

Ezra Pound once felt the need to observe: “Any institution that could survive the picturesqueness of the Borgias has a certain native resiliency.” But it’s not only the Borgias. The number of things that we clearly see the Church has survived is quite impressive, indeed unprecedented compared with any other human institution: The death of Jesus. The betrayal of all the apostles (not just Judas). The martyrdom of all the apostles (except for John). Early heresies (so many they would require a separate list). Persecution and martyrdom by the Roman Empire. Acceptance by the Roman Empire. Collapse of the Roman Empire. Barbarian invasions. Saracen invasions (Old St. Peter’s itself sacked in 846). Conflicts with medieval (Christian) kings and emperors. Medieval heresies (Albigenses, Franciscan Spirituals, etc.). The Fall of Byzantium. Renaissance corruption. The Reformation (Rome sacked again in 1527 by the Lutheran troops of Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). The wars of religion. Late assaults by the Turks. Baroque corruptions. Pascal’s Jesuits. Kings claiming divine rights. Revolutions claiming absolute power. Napoleon. Freemasonry. Liberalism. Socialism. Nazism. Communism. Darwinism. Limp modern liturgies. Priestly sexual abuse. “Women religious” who believe in the Goddess or the cosmic process or whatever, and are proud of it.

This is just a partial list, which would at a minimum also need to recognize the constant presence of bad bishops and priests, and an ever-fickle laity. Under such circumstances – and given the tendency of all things to decay over time, it’s a miracle – perhaps, in a way, the greatest miracle of Christianity, that the Catholic Thing has survived, as Aquinas suggested. If we believe that Jesus is the God who created the universe, his rising from the dead was mere child’s play. Keeping together billions of fallen human beings, whom God has taken the risk of endowing with the freedom to choose their own ways, in a real historical Communion via the fragile earthen vessel we call the Church, may very well require even more divine powers. 

Also, every Holy Week when I experience these rituals, I think how horrible it would be to lose these outward representations--some are sacramentals and some are Sacraments--of the great Paschal Mystery. The Catholic people of England lost these rituals, and many others in the Sarum Use, in the sixteenth century. They were taken away in the name of preventing superstition but these rituals were not superstitious; the Church had developed these rituals to remind people of all that Jesus had done for His people, the Church. 

The rituals of Holy Week were taken away because the reformers did not trust the unity between Jesus and His Church; the reformers were complicating the matter in a way that St. Joan of Arc had warned against: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they are just one thing and we shouldn't complicate the matter." Because the English reformers complicated the matter, the Catholic people of England ended up with palmless Palm Sundays, candleless Candlemases and ashless Ash Wednesdays not to mention Shrovetide without Confession and Communion without the Real Presence. So within a couple of generations, they weren't the Catholic people of England anymore and yet a few endured, suffered, survived and revived three centuries later--which is another miracle indeed.

Of course anything good can be abused; even replacing rituals with a non-ritual can be abused and even reading the Bible could be abused superstitiously. Our Christian faith is an incarnational religion that unites the human and Divine in the great mystery and miracle of Jesus and His Church, His Bride for whom He lived and died and rose and lives always. The Catholic Church, messy and sinful as we certainly are with people like me among us, displays that mystery most miraculously every Passiontide, Holy Week, and Triduum.

Both pictures provided and copyright by Mark U. Mann (c) 2013-2015; used by permission. (Holy Week afternoon at Blessed Sacrament; Easter Sunday at St. Anthony of Padua.)

Sunday Series Post #2: Winchester and St. Swithun

The Winchester Cathedral website includes the image at the left, a statue representing Ecclesia, the Church: "Thought to represent Ecclesia (the Church), this exquisite female statue, with its elegant flowing garments, is a superb example of English 13th-century sculpture. It was dug up from the Cathedral grounds headless, armless and weather beaten, and now graces the Retrochoir at the far end of the Cathedral. " --It obviously would have been destroyed at some point during the English Reformation. After Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell ordered the destruction of shrines, Edward VI's Protector and Parliament ordered a more complete destruction of saints' images and statues, and those two iconoclastic efforts are evident in Winchester Cathedral, even though many beautiful vestiges of the great medieval abbey church remain or have been restored.

Winchester's fame on the pilgrimage trail was the Shrine of St. Swithun. The website describes the Medieval and Reformation periods thusly:

A thriving medieval Cathedral
The Norman Cathedral flourished. William Rufus, William the Conqueror’s son, was buried here in 1100.

You can still see the remains of its great monastery, St Swithun’s Priory. These include the 14th-century Pilgrims’ Hall where visitors stayed, and the site of the monks’ dormitory, now a tranquil garden.

Sumptuous works of art were commissioned. A glorious new font celebrating the work of St Nicholas was installed. In the 12th century, a magnificent illuminated Bible was made for the monks to use in their daily worship. You can still see the Winchester Bible in the Cathedral Library.

In the centuries that followed, wealthy and powerful bishops put their stamp on the Norman cathedral. They remodelled it with soaring gothic arches the 14th century, making it even more ornate in the 15th and 16th centuries.

They also commissioned their own chapels, where priests would say daily masses over their tombs to speed their souls into heaven. These fine chantry chapels remain one of the great glories of our Cathedral.

A new Church of England
The dissolution of England’s monasteries during the 1530s under Henry VIII, in his dispute with the Catholic church of Rome, was a catastrophic upheaval. All were swept away. A few, including Winchester, were re-founded as cathedrals.

After nearly 600 years, Winchester’s great Benedictine monastery, St Swithun’s Priory, had come to an end. The shrine of its patron saint was ransacked under cover of darkness, and its cloister demolished.

In the 1550s, Roman Catholicism was briefly revived by Henry’s daughter Mary Tudor, who married her Spanish husband in the Cathedral. But from then on, the reformed Church of England held sway.

It brought with it a new prayer book written in English so all could understand, and a new pattern of worship based on Mattins, Holy Communion and Evensong. These great Anglican services still form the basis of our worship in today.

I think those paragraphs contain an interesting mixture of regret and triumph; sorrow at the material losses of the dissolution of the monasteries and the shrine; yet confidence that something better developed. "Ransacked under the cover of darkness": sounds sneaky and reflects contemporary concern that the people would not be happy with the changes taking place. "A new prayer book written in English so all could understand". Only if all understand English--rather "insular" I think. And what does everyone understand: the words or the mystery of faith? It's difficult to write history in a few short paragraphs, however, I know. Tomorrow's post, remembering Jane Austen (buried in Winchester Cathedral) will provide another example of that difficulty--with a very different solution!

Lenten Posting and A New Series on the Son Rise Morning Show

Today is Quinquagesima Sunday and I've made some of my plans for Lent.

I'm going to cut back on posting here and on my Facebook pages (personal and book) to exclusively Lenten and English Reformation martyr posts. There are at least 30 (thirty) English Reformation martyrs to remember this Lent (from February 26 to April 8, the Wednesday of Holy Week).

On Monday, March 2, I'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show, offering reflections on sermons and meditations for Lent by St. John Henry Newman in The Tears of Christ: Meditations for Lent.

The book is available from the Augustine Institute and was edited by Christopher O. Blum.

The Tears of Christ is a companion volume to Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Advent and Christmas from the same publisher and editor, which I reviewed for the National Catholic Register in 2018.

To introduce the series, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show this week on the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, February 27, at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern.

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

Anna Mitchell and I will select a sermon for each Monday's broadcast, and I'll preview it the Friday before. The sermons are all available on-line at the Newman Reader and I'll link the complete sermon from which Blum has excerpted paragraphs in the preview.

I'll be using this volume as part of my Lenten devotions along with listening to a CD I purchased from Aid to the Church in Need (UK): Catholic Meditations with Music for the Season of Lent from the Oxford Oratory:

In this thought-provoking CD, recorded at the Oxford Oratory, Father Jerome Bertram offers reflections for the season of Lent highlighting the importance of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and the spiritual rewards of the Lenten journey. The meditations are accompanied by responsories taken from the Matins of Lent.

Track listing:

1. Hymn: Ex more docti
2. The Season of Lent: Spring-Cleaning for the Soul, Part One
3. Responsory: Emendemus in melius, quae ignoranter peccavimus
4. The Season of Lent: Spring-Cleaning for the Soul, Part Two
5. Responsory: Pater, peccavi in cælum, et coram te
6. Prayer: Opening our Hearts to God. Part One
7. Responsory: Tribularer, si nescirem misericordias tuas, Domine
8. Prayer: Opening our Hearts to God, Part Two
9. Responsory: Derelinquat impius viam suam
10. Fasting, making space in our life, Part One
11 Responsory: Moyses, famulus Dei, jejunauit quadraginta diebus
12. Fasting, making space in our life, Part Two
13. Responsory: Frange esurienti panem tuum
14. Almsgiving: Showing Christ¹s love to the World, Part One
15. Responsory: Abscondite eleemosynam in sinu pauperum
16. Almsgiving: Showing Christ¹s love to the World, Part Two
17. Responsory: Angelis suis mandavit de te
18. The Rewards of Lent
19. Antiphon: Ave, Regina Caelorum

Father Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory died on October 19, 2019. 

Newman's Feast and Canonization, 2019

I was very happy to see all the events the Chaplain at Newman University here in Wichita is planning for this week leading up to Newman's canonization--I plan to attend the Mass on Sunday evening, October 13.

Our Diocesan Spiritual Life Center is hosting two events after the canonization to help Catholics understand the significance of Newman's life and works. There's a series starting on October 21 and a retreat in November. The series is taught by one of the IHM sisters who has been studying Newman for years:

Join Sr. Mary Catherine Blanding, IHM for a series on the life and teachings of soon-to-be Saint John Henry Newman. Sister will present on four (4) Mondays, Oct. 21, Oct. 28, Nov. 4 and Nov. 11. The following topics will be her focus:

"John Henry Newman: Unifier among the Polarized"
"Newman: The Master of Friendship in an age of Loneliness and Isolation"
"Education par Excellance: Newman and the Idea of a University"
"Newman and the Priesthood"

I'll be making a couple of presentations at the retreat on November 15 and 16:

Under the direction of Stephanie Mann and Fr. Tom Hoisington, this retreat will feature presentations, immersive Catholic Culture, and discussion of Newman's Kansas connection.

The retreat will include a Friday evening social including entertainment by local musician Jack Korbel, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, daily Mass, and opportunity for confession.

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.” ~ Saint John Henry Newman  

Please join us for an overnight retreat exploring the life and teachings of the soon to be canonized Blessed John Henry Newman.

Newman’s writings have long been esteemed by scholars. Now, with his canonization, his influence is being lifted up for all to see; not just for theologians, but for the whole Church. Among many other things, Newman is famous for his explanations of the way doctrine develops, the way God saves us through his Church, and the way people come to know and accept truth.

Retreatants will walk through his teachings under the direction of Stephanie Mann and Fr. Tom Hoisington, both of the Wichita Diocese. Stephanie Mann will give two presentations: one focusing on the impact Newman has had in our diocese, and the other on the importance of Newman for the laity in light of his being raised to the altars. Fr. Hoisington will present on Newman’s personalism- his explanation of how an individual subject makes response to objective truth in a way that is both personal and universal- an essential area of Newman’s thought that is often misunderstood and underappreciated.

New this retreat, participants will enjoy a Friday evening social time with music, appetizers and drinks as they enjoy eachother’s company and build a Catholic Culture. Musician Jack Korbel will provide entertainment.

The retreat includes all presentations, a Friday evening social, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, daily Mass, opportunity for confession, and overnight lodging for those who wish to stay.

This event starts on Friday, November 15 at 7:00 p.m. and continues Saturday, November 16 with Morning Prayer at 9:00 a.m., with presentations, Mass, and lunch following. We might work in a brief panel discussion before the end at 3:30 p.m.

O God, who bestowed on the Priest 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, for ever and ever.
Amen.

I don't know if there will be any update to the Office of Readings for Newman's feast, which is now a memorial in the Dioceses in England and Wales; if his feast will raised to the level of a Feast for the Oratories or the Personal Ordinariates or those dioceses--but I hope his feast will be a memorial on the calendar here in the USA next October 9. Then he has to compete with St. John Leonardi and St. Denis the martyr!

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

SRMS Schedule Update and The Feast of the Holy Family

Contrary to previous reports, I will not be live on the Son Rise Morning Show this coming Monday, January 2, 2023!! The show's staff has the day off! 

So instead, we'll wrap up our Newman Advent/Christmas series on Monday, January 9, 2023 at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, with an appropriate sermon for Epiphany, which we will just have celebrated on Sunday--including a mention of the Baptism of Our Lord, which we will be celebrating that day!

Today, however, is the Feast of the Holy Family! As the Catholic Culture website explains:

Today is the Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas. When there is no Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is celebrated on the Sixth Day of the Octave of Christmas.

"Scripture tells us practically nothing about the first years and the boyhood of the Child Jesus. All we know are the facts of the sojourn in Egypt, the return to Nazareth, and the incidents that occurred when the twelve-year-old boy accompanied his parents to Jerusalem. In her liturgy the Church hurries over this period of Christ's life with equal brevity. The general breakdown of the family, however, at the end of the past century and at the beginning of our own, prompted the popes, especially the far-sighted Leo XIII, to promote the observance of this feast with the hope that it might instill into Christian families something of the faithful love and the devoted attachment that characterize the family of Nazareth. The primary purpose of the Church in instituting and promoting this feast is to present the Holy Family as the model and exemplar of all Christian families." —Excerpted from With Christ Through the Year, Rev. Bernard Strasser, O.S.B.

In addition to promoting the Feast, Pope Leo XIII composed the hymns for Matins, Vespers, and Lauds. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Holy See instituted the feast in 1893, making it a duplex majus (greater double) and assigning it to the third Sunday after Epiphany. Leo XIII composed the three hymns (Vespers, Matins, Lauds) of the Breviary Office. The hymn for Matins contains nine Sapphic stanzas of the classical type . . . .

The hymns for Vespers (O lux beata caelitum) and Lauds (O gente felix hospita) are in classical dimeter iambics, four-lined stanzas, of which the Vespers hymn contains six and the Lauds hymn seven exclusive of the usual Marian doxology (Jesu tibi sit gloria). All three hymns are replete with spiritual unction, graceful expression, and classical dignity of form. They reflect the sentiment of the pope in his letter establishing a Pious Association in honour of the Holy Family and in his Encyclical dealing with the condition of working-men.

Pope Leo XIII holds a special place in my heart because he made Father John Henry Newman of the Oratory a Cardinal, even though he knew it might cause trouble, and referred to Newman as ‘Il mio cardinale’ (My Cardinal)!

The December 2020 Magnificat prayer magazine had a translation of his Matins hymn for Morning Prayer and of his Lauds hymn for Evening Prayer. This year, Magnificat, as it did in 2021, has again included a translation of his Lauds hymn for Evening Prayer!

More about these hymns and translations may be found here.

It's still Christmas: Merry Christmas!

Image credit (Public Domain): French holy card, 1890.

Sunday Series Post #4: St. David's in Wales

According to the timeline on the website for the Cathedral of St. David's in Wales:

1538: Bishop [William] Barlow strips St Davids shrine of its jewels and confiscates the relics of St David and St Justinian in order to counteract "superstition".(sic)

According to the homepage on the same website, they need 150,000 BPS to restore the medieval shrine of St. David!

In the 12th century Pope Calixtus II declared St Davids Cathedral to be a place of pilgrimage. It was at this time that the medieval shrine was constructed and situated in the presbytery, close to the High Altar. Pope Calixtus II also stated that the Shrine was so important that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome, three were equivalent to one to Jerusalem. Since then the path of pilgrimage has been trodden by hundreds of thousands of individuals. The destruction of the Shrine during the Reformation caused a steep decline in this important religious practice. However throughout the periods of religious and political turmoil, pilgrims have continued to visit the site.

The restoration of the Shrine will return the relics of St David to their rightful place in the Cathedral. It will offer visitors and pilgrims an opportunity to pray at the Shrine and to give thanks to God for the example of St David. With the restoration of the Shrine it is hoped that St Davids Cathedral will once again become the most important place of pilgrimage in Wales.

This website describes the career and answers questions about William Barlow who destroyed that shrine:

What of the man and his achievements? The date of his birth is unknown but he died in 1568. He became an Augustinian Canon of St. Osyth Priory in Essex. He wrote many tracts such as "Burying of the Mass" and had very strong reforming views which got him into trouble in the early years of Henry VIII's reign. He then rose to be a prominent member of the Augustinian Order becoming Prior of Haverfordwest by 1534, acted as Chaplain to Henry VIII, and had led an embassy to Scotland on behalf of the King. In 1536 he was consecrated Bishop of St. Asaph followed by St. David's in the same year, being the the first Protestant Bishop to be appointed by the King and not elected. During the reign of Edward VI he was appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells He fled to the Continent after a short term of imprisonment under Queen Mary only to return under Elizabeth to be made Bishop of Chichester.

He was the only Bishop who played a part in the consecration of Mathew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559 who had been consecrated under the traditional forms of the Roman Church. Considered to be a distinguished father of the Protestant Church. What of his five daughters? They all married Bishops.

Of course, 150,000 BPS won't restore medieval grandeur and jewels!

Thinking of Wales recalls Tintern Abbey and William Wordsworth. I hope to see it some day!

Preview: Another Newman Easter Season Sermon, "The Eucharistic Presence"

On Monday, April 29, the penultimate day of the month, we'll continue our Newman Easter Sermon series on the Son Rise Morning Show with "The Eucharistic Presence" sermon 11 in volume 6 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons ("This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." John 6:50.) 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 29. Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

Saint John Henry Newman, then an Anglican minister, preached this sermon on May 13, 1838, according to the chronology "given at the end of Longmans' Sermons on Subjects of the Day (pp. 411-424)". It is definitely an Anglican sermon as Newman is careful to distinguish between the Eucharistic doctrines of the Church of England and what he calls "one very large portion of Christendom" (the Catholic Church)--but more about that later!

In this Season of Easter, when those who entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, receiving the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion) and Second Graders have received their First Holy Communion, this seems an appropriate Newman Sermon to consider, even though he did not believe at that time what those new Catholics and Second Graders do about Holy Communion.

He begins with calling the Lenten and Easter Seasons the "Sacramental Season" and particularly the season in which Anglicans receive Holy Communion, according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer:

THE quarter of the year from Ash-Wednesday to Trinity Sunday may fittingly be called the Sacramental Season, as the Season preceding it is the Season of grace; and as we are specially called in the Christmas Season to sincerity of purpose, so now we are called to faith. God does good to those who are good and true of heart; and He reveals His mysteries to the believing. The earnest heart is the good ground in which faith takes root, and the truths of the Gospel are like the dew, the sunshine, and the soft rain, which make that heavenly seed to grow.

And in this sermon Newman does refer to Holy Communion as an Anglican sacrament:

The text speaks of the greatest and highest of all the Sacramental mysteries, which faith has been vouchsafed, that of Holy Communion. Christ, who died and rose again for us, is in it spiritually present, in the fulness of His death and of His resurrection. We call His presence in this Holy Sacrament a {137} spiritual presence, not as if "spiritual" were but a name or mode of speech, and He were really absent, but by way of expressing that He who is present there can neither be seen nor heard; that He cannot be approached or ascertained by any of the senses; that He is not present in place, that He is not present carnally, though He is really present. And how this is, of course is a mystery. All that we know or need know is that He is given to us, and that in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Just a little background, via this article from Adoremus by Father Michael Ewe Lang:

The early Tractarians (the members of the Oxford Movement were known for the publication of their Tracts for the Times) advocated a full application of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, especially the daily services of Matins and Evensong, which had fallen out of use, and a more frequent celebration of Communion. . . . On June 30, 1834, Newman began with the daily service of Matins in St. Mary the Virgin, and from 1836 he ensured that Evensong was celebrated every day in his newly built church in Littlemore. After some consideration, Newman instituted an early Sunday morning Communion service in the University church at Easter 1837.[4]

Newman was careful to follow the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer to the letter, since any alteration of the established customs would have added fuel to the controversy about the Oxford Movement, which was seen as “Romanizing.” . . .

Also, please note that according to the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, those who wished to receive Holy Communion at the Sunday service notified the Curate of the parish in advance so that there was time to determine if there was any reason the communicant should NOT present herself to receive the Sacrament to avoid "grave and immediate scandal"!

After his introduction of the text for his sermon, Newman addresses how the Gospel of St. John, in chapter 6 and elsewhere, supplements the narratives of the Lord's Supper and other Sacraments in the Synoptic Gospels with a doctrinal explanation:

Now, with reference to the text and the chapter from which it is taken, I begin by observing, what at first sight one would think no one could doubt, that this chapter of St. John does treat of the Lord's Supper, and is, in fact, a comment upon the account of it, given by the other three Evangelists. We know it is St. John's way to supply what his brethren omit, and that especially in matters of doctrine; and in like manner to omit what they record. Hence, while all three give an account of the institution of Holy Communion at the last Supper, St. John omits it; and, because they omit to enlarge upon the great gift contained in it, he enters upon it. . . .

So in what we now usually call "the Bread of Life discourse", Newman tells his listeners/readers that

The bearing, then, of our Lord's sacred words would seem to be as follows, if one may venture to investigate it. At Capernaum, in the chapter now before us, He solemnly declares to His Apostles that none shall live for ever, but such as eat and drink His flesh and blood; and then afterwards. just before He was crucified, as related in the other three Gospels, He points out to them the way in which this mystery of grace was to be fulfilled in them. He assigns the consecrated Bread as that Body of which He had spoken, and the consecrated Wine as His Blood; and in partaking of the Bread and the Cup, they were partakers of His Body and Blood. . . .

When, then, Christ used the words of the text and of {140} other parts of the chapter containing it, He was describing prospectively that gift, which, in due season, the consecrated bread and wine were to convey to His Church for ever. Speaking with reference to what was to be, He says, "I am that Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

And then Newman goes on to explicate the connections among the Manna of the Holy Testament, the miracle of loaves and fishes Jesus had just performed before the crowds followed Him to get more, the meaning of the words in the Discourse, the Institution of the Eucharist, and even the words and rubrics of the Anglican Prayer of Consecration. 

His effort throughout is to demonstrate that Jesus was not speaking figuratively or metaphorically about His Body and His Blood in chapter six of the Gospel of John but that the Institution of the Holy Eucharist the night before He died described in the Synoptic Gospels was the fulfillment of that earlier message: He gave the Church the means of consecrating and receiving His Body and His Blood.

There's just too much detail for us to consider in the time we have at the end of the hour to review it all! You may certainly read it all here.

Of course, Newman's conclusion is important, since it prescribes the congregation's response to these mysteries. Note especially the connection Newman makes between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Sacrament of Holy Communion:

Such reflections as the foregoing lead us to this conclusion,—to understand that it is our duty to make much of Christ's miracles of love; and instead of denying or feeling cold towards them, to desire to possess our hearts with them. . . . Let us feel interest and awful expectation at the news of them; let us put ourselves in the way of them; let us wait upon God day by day for the treasures of grace, which are hid in Christ, which are great beyond words or thought.

Above all, let us pray Him to draw us to Him, and to give us faith. When we feel that His mysteries are too severe for us, and occasion us to doubt, let us earnestly wait on Him for the gift of humility and love. Those who love and who are humble will apprehend them;—carnal minds do not seek them, and proud minds are offended at them;—but while love desires them, humility sustains them. Let us pray Him then to give us such a real and living insight into the blessed doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of His birth of a Virgin, His atoning death, and resurrection, that we may desire that the Holy Communion may be the effectual type of that gracious Economy. No one realizes the Mystery of the Incarnation but must feel disposed towards that of Holy Communion. Let us pray Him to give us an earnest longing after Him—a thirst for His presence—an anxiety to find Him—a joy on hearing that He is to be found, even now, under the veil of sensible things,—and a good hope that we shall find Him there. Blessed indeed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. They have their reward in believing; they enjoy the contemplation of a mysterious blessing, which does not even enter into the thoughts {152} of other men; and while they are more blessed than others, in the gift vouchsafed to them, they have the additional privilege of knowing that they are vouchsafed it.

Now, about his comments in this sermon re: the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is what he says in 1838:

Nothing can show more clearly how high the blessing is, than to observe that the Church's tendency has been, not to detract from its marvellousness, but to increase it. The Church has never thought little of the gift; so far from it, we know that one very large portion of Christendom holds more than we hold. That belief, which goes beyond ours, shows how great the gift is really. I allude to the doctrine of what is called Transubstantiation, which we do not admit; or that the bread and wine cease to be, and that Christ's sacred Body and Blood are directly seen, touched, and handled, under the appearances of Bread and Wine. This our Church considers there is no ground for saying, and our Lord's own words contain marvel enough, even without adding any thing to them by way of explanation. Let us, then, now consider them in themselves, apart from additions which came afterwards.

But if you turn to his Apologia pro Vita Sua from 1864, you'll read in the last chapter, "The Position of my Mind since 1845", Newman writes of the doctrine of Transubstantiation:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? 

He compares faithful acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation to faithful acceptance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons:

 And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

Please note that the date at the bottom of this chapter is on the Feast of Corpus Christi, May 26, 1864.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): 16th-century painting of the Lord's/Last Supper by Juan de Juanes

Image Source (Public Domain): The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael 1509–1510) depicts theologians debating Transubstantiation, including four Doctors of the Church, with Pope Gregory I and Jerome seated to the left of the altar and Augustine and Ambrose to the right, Pope Julius II, Pope Sixtus IV, Savonarola and Dante Alighieri.

Preview: Newman on Jesus and the Raising of Lazarus

On Monday, April 4, I'll continue the Son Rise Morning Show series of reflections on Lenten sermons by Saint John Henry Newman edited and excerpted in The Tears of Christ. We'll be on the air at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live on EWTN Radio or on your local EWTN affiliate. 

Last month, our Lovers of Newman group met at the Formation House of the Sisters of the Immaculate of Mary in Colwich, Kansas to read out loud, meditate on, and discuss one of St. John Henry Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus". 

You could say that this sermon is Newman's homiletic dissertation on the shortest verse identified in the Gospels, John 11:35: "Jesus Wept", as he explores why Jesus wept and what those tears mean in the Incarnate Son of God, as a Divine Person and in His human nature. Newman also applies the poignant statements of Martha and Mary, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (remember that Jesus had delayed returning to Bethany, so close to Jerusalem and danger, after hearing that Lazarus was ill) to his listeners and readers as we face trouble and grief. 

If you attend a Mass this Sunday, April 3 with the final Scrutiny for the Elect who will receive the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil, you will hear this Gospel, John 11: 1-45. Otherwise, you'll hear the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, also from John, 8:1-11.

In The Tears of Christ, which we are using for our weekly discussions on the Son Rise Morning Show, this sermon is excerpted in two parts for the Sunday and the Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent, and I chose to focus on the second part, because of these two remarkable passages from the third and fourth points Newman makes about why "Jesus wept":

3. . . . Was He not in Joseph's case, who not in grief, but from the very fulness of his soul, and his desolateness in a heathen land, when his brethren stood before him, "sought where to weep," as if his own tears were his best companions, and had in them a sympathy to soothe that pain which none could share? . . . Christ's was a different contemplation; yet attended with its own peculiar emotion. I mean the feeling that He had power to raise up Lazarus. Joseph wept, as having a secret, not only of the past, but of the future;—of good in store as well as of evil done—of good which it was in his own power to confer. And our Lord and Saviour knew that, while all seemed so dreary and hopeless, in spite of the tears and laments of his friends, in spite of the corpse four days old, of the grave and the stone which was upon it, He had the power which could overcome death, and He was about to use it. Is there any time more affecting than when you are about to break good news to a friend who has been stricken down by tidings of ill?

4. Alas! there were other thoughts still to call forth His tears. This marvellous benefit to the forlorn sisters, how was it to be attained? at His own cost. Joseph knew he could bring joy to his brethren, but at no sacrifice of his own. Christ was bringing life to the dead by his own death. 

Joseph, whose brothers had sold him into a slavery, had become the Pharaoh's trusted counselor: he would be able to help his father and brothers with the grain that Egypt had stored based on his advice ot Pharoah.  He was able to give from a huge supply of grain; it cost him nothing personally.

In this next passage, Newman offers us a preview of everything we are going to hear at Mass in the next two weeks, mostly from the Gospel of John:

His disciples would have dissuaded him from going into Judea, lest the Jews should kill Him. Their apprehension was fulfilled. He went to raise Lazarus, and the fame of that miracle was the immediate cause of His seizure and crucifixion. This He knew beforehand, He saw the prospect before Him; He saw Lazarus raised [John 11:43-44]; the supper in Martha's house; Lazarus sitting at table; joy on all sides of Him [John 12:2]; Mary honouring her Lord on this festive occasion by the outpouring of the very costly ointment upon His feet [John 12:3]; the Jews crowding not only to see Him, but Lazarus also [John 12:9]; His triumphant entry into Jerusalem; the multitude shouting Hosanna [John 12:13]; the people testifying to the raising of Lazarus [John 12:17]; the Greeks, who had come up to worship at the feast, earnest to see Him [John 12:20-26]; the children joining in the general joy [Matthew 21:15-16]; and then the Pharisees plotting against Him [John 11:45-53, 57; 12:1], Judas betraying Him [John 13:21-30], His friends deserting Him [Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:50], and the cross receiving Him [John 19:17]. 

Newman then boldly enters into the human feelings of Jesus:

These things doubtless, among a multitude of thoughts unspeakable, passed over His mind. He felt that Lazarus was wakening to life at His own sacrifice; that He was descending into the grave which Lazarus left. He felt that Lazarus was to live and He to die; the appearance of things was to be reversed; the feast was to be kept in Martha's house, but the last passover of sorrow remained for Him. And He knew that this reverse was altogether voluntary with Him. He had come down from His Father's bosom to be an Atonement of blood for all sin, and thereby to raise all believers from the grave, as He was then about to raise Lazarus; and to raise them, not for a time, but for eternity; and now the sharp trial lay before Him, through which He was to "open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." Contemplating then the fulness of His purpose while now going about a single act of mercy, He said to Martha, "I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die."

Finally, Newman applies these meditations to our own dealings with the illness and death of loved ones, the faith we need to bear them, and the confidence we should have in Jesus:

Wherever faith in Christ is, there is Christ Himself. He said to Martha, "Do you believe this?" Wherever there is a heart to answer, "Lord, I believe," there Christ is present. Blessed be his name! Nothing can rob us of this consolation: we will be as certain, through His grace, that He is standing over us in love, as though we saw Him. We will not, after our experience of Lazarus's history, doubt an instant that He is thoughtful about us. He knows the beginnings of our illness, though He keeps at a distance. He knows when to remain away and when to draw near. He notes down the advances of it, and the stages. He tells truly when His friend Lazarus is sick and when he sleeps. We all have experience of this in the narrative before us, and henceforth, so be it! will never complain at the course of His providence. Only, we will beg of Him an increase of faith;—a more lively perception of the curse under which the world lies, and of our own personal demerits, a more understanding view of the mystery of His Cross, a more devout and implicit reliance on the virtue of it, and a more confident persuasion that He will never put upon us more than we can bear, never afflict His brethren with any woe except for their own highest benefit.

I heartily recommend that even if you don't hear this Gospel passage on Sunday, April 3, you read it and then read the two substantial excerpts from Newman's sermon in The Tears of Christ, or at the Newman Reader website. It is certainly a good meditation for the week before Holy Week as we enter the Passiontide of Our Lord.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!
Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Rembrandt's Raising of Lazarus, 1630–1631

Image Credit (Public Domain): The Raising of Lazarus, 1857, Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat