Preview: Father Ian Ker on what Newman Learned from the Church Fathers

On Monday, September 9, we'll continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on Newman and the Fathers of the Church. In this episode, we'll take a look at one of the lessons Newman learned by reading the Fathers of the Church at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central DST/7:50 a.m. Eastern DST. Please listen live here or on the podcast later.

The late Father Ian Ker edited Selected Sermons by Newman for the Paulist Press "Classics of Western Spirituality" series. In the section of his Introduction titled "The Influence of the Greek Fathers", Father Ker highlights the impact they had on Newman's thought as demonstrated by excerpts from the Parochial and Plain Sermons. 

The five areas he identifies are:

1). The Incarnation

2). The Resurrection and Pentecost

3). The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

4). The Sacraments

5). Mystery

He declares:

It was the thought of the Greek Fathers that shaped and guided Newman's reading of Scripture, out of which emerged that great corpus of sermons, the Parochial and Plain Sermons, one of the enduring classics of Christian spirituality. (p. 28)

We'll start with the first area of emphasis: The Incarnation. One thing Father Ker does not do in discussing these influences is to identify which Greek Father or Fathers influenced Newman to certain doctrinal and theological views. I think it's easy to identify at least one of the Fathers that influenced Newman to emphasize the Incarnation. It's Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. 

As noted before, Newman had studied the Arian crisis in the fourth century and Saint Athanasius was one of the great defenders of the Church's teaching about the Incarnation against the Arian heresy. Joseph Carola, S.J. points out in Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth Century Catholicism: The Patristic Legacy of the Scuola Romana (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2023), Newman began his book publishing career with a book featuring Saint Athanasius (The Arians of the Fourth Century) in 1832 and ended it with another book about him in 1877, the final edition of his translation of Select Treatises of Saint Athanasius, first published in the  Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church in 1844. (p. 91)

Ker emphasizes that Newman gave priority to the Incarnation at a time when the doctrine of the Atonement received more emphasis because it "sets him apart from what was then at least the predominant tradition of Western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and is to be traced to the profound influence exerted on him by the Greek Fathers." (p. 29) As Father Ker states, Newman's "high Christology" matches the Christology of those Greek Fathers. As an example, he quotes Newman's 1834 sermon ("The Incarnation") on Christmas Day, as he reminds his congregation of "the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation":

Thus the Son of God became the Son of Man; mortal, but not a sinner; heir of our infirmities, not of our guiltiness; the offspring of the old race, yet {32} "the beginning of the" new "creation of God." . . . Thus He came, selecting and setting apart for Himself the elements of body and soul; then, uniting them, to Himself from their first origin of existence, pervading them, hallowing them by His own Divinity, spiritualizing them, and filling them with light and purity, the while they continued to be human, and for a time mortal and exposed to infirmity. . . .Great is our Lord, and great is His power, Jesus the Son of God and Son of man. Ten thousand times more dazzling bright than the highest Archangel, is our Lord and Christ. By birth the Only-begotten and Express image of God; and in taking our flesh, not sullied thereby, but raising human nature with Him, as He rose from the lowly manger to the right hand of power,—raising human nature, for Man has redeemed us, Man is set above all creatures, as one with the Creator, Man shall judge man at the last day. So honoured is this earth, that no stranger {40} shall judge us, but He who is our fellow, who will sustain our interests, and has full sympathy in all our imperfections.

For readers of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this "high Christology" of Newman's is no surprise. As paragraph #460 declares, quoting St. Athanasius among other sources:

The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":⁷⁸ "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."⁷⁹ "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."⁸⁰ "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."⁸¹

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.

And as we'll see next week on September 16, Newman's emphasis on the Resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost demonstrates that Newman saw the whole of Christ's Incarnate life as "one single divine act unfolding in several closely connected stages." (p. 31)

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

 

Image Source (Public Domain): Saint Athanasius. By Francesco Bartolozzi after Domenichino.

Four English Catholic Martyrs on "Church and Culture"

On Wednesday, I recorded an hour of the Ave Maria Radio Program hosted by Deal Hudson, "Church and Culture": Telling the stories of four English Catholic Martyrs from the Tudor era. 

It will air tomorrow, Saturday August 31 at 3 p.m. Central/4 p.m. Eastern, during the second hour of "Church and Culture". You may listen live here. Deal Hudson will post about the episode on his Facebook page here.

I selected two each from the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I:

Saint John Fisher and Blessed Margaret Pole from Henry VIII's reign. Their ties to the Tudor family are close but certainly did not save them when they opposed, or in the case of Margaret Pole, even seemed to oppose Henry VIII's plans, marital and ecclesial!

Saint Edmund Campion, SJ and Saint Anne Line from Elizabeth I's reign. He represents the many priest-martyrs, beatified and canonized, and she represents many women, canonized or not, who sheltered priests during the recusant era in England.

You know how often I've written about these martyrs on this blog and elsewhere.

If you can't listen to it live, it will be archived here. And Deal will send me a link too so I'll update my Facebook page!

The picture above is the article from our diocesan Catholic Advance, when Deal came to Wichita to serve as the first Visiting Chair of the Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies--so when he refers to our long acquaintance at the beginning of the program, that's why!

And, we'll schedule a conversation about the English Catholic Martyrs of the Stuart era in the future.

Preview: Newman to Pusey on Mary and the Fathers of the Church

On Monday, August 26, we'll continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on Newman and the Fathers of the Church. We'll take a break from the series on Labor Day, Monday, September 2 and resume the next Monday, September 9.

This Monday's topic is a look at how Saint John Henry Newman reached out to his Oxford Movement friend, E. B. Pusey to remind him of what the Fathers of the Church, whom Newman, Pusey, and their good friend John Keble had studied, said about the Mother of God as the Second Eve. 

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central DST/7:50 a.m. Eastern DST. Please listen live here or on the podcast later.

One of the projects of the Oxford Movement Newman, Pusey, and Keble collaborated on was the publication of volumes of the works of the Fathers of the Church. They wanted Church of England pastors to read them to demonstrate that the Church of England's Via Media was closer in the interpretation of the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church than either the Catholic Church or the Protestant dissenters (or Lutherans or Calvinists). This project, A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, was published in separate volumes from 1838 to 1881, sold by subscription. Pusey and Keble completed the project after Newman converted in 1845.

So when Pope Pius IX proclaimed the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception in 1854, stating: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful", Pusey wrote a public letter to John Keble about how the Church of England should react to the proclamation, especially how it might hinder hopes for Christian unity. Pusey mentioned their colleague in their former effort to revive the Apostolic authority of the bishops in the Anglican Church, namely, Newman. 

Because of that former shared interest in the Fathers of the Church, one of Newman's main ways of addressing Pusey's comments was to highlight the Father's witness and authority, focusing on the image of Mary as the Second Eve, as Jesus is comparable (per St. Paul) to Adam. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

In the third chapter of his Letter to Pusey, Newman reminds his correspondent of "the great rudimental teaching" of the ancient Church, expressed by the Fathers:

What is the great rudimental teaching of Antiquity from its earliest date concerning her? By "rudimental teaching," I mean the primâ facie view of her person and office, the broad outline laid down of her, the aspect under which she comes to us, in the writings of the Fathers. She is the Second Eve [Note 1]. Now let us consider what this implies. Eve had a definite, essential position in the First Covenant. The fate of the human race lay with Adam; he it was who represented us. It was in Adam that we fell; though Eve had fallen, still, if Adam had stood, we should not have lost those supernatural privileges which were bestowed upon him as our first father. Yet though Eve was not the head of the race, still, even as regards the race, she had a place of her own; for Adam, to whom was divinely committed the naming of all things, named her "the Mother of all the living," a name surely expressive, not of a fact only, but of a dignity; but further, as she thus had her own general relation to the human race, so again had she her own special {32} place, as regards its trial and its fall in Adam. In those primeval events, Eve had an integral share. "The woman, being seduced, was in the transgression." She listened to the Evil Angel; she offered the fruit to her husband, and he ate of it. She co-operated, not as an irresponsible instrument, but intimately and personally in the sin: she brought it about. As the history stands, she was a sine-qua-non, a positive, active, cause of it. And she had her share in its punishment; in the sentence pronounced on her, she was recognized as a real agent in the temptation and its issue, and she suffered accordingly. In that awful transaction there were three parties concerned,—the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for a distant future, in which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent, the woman, and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman, whose seed or son He is, is His mother Mary. This interpretation, and the parallelism it involves, seem to me undeniable; but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.

Newman then begins to offer translations from the Fathers of the Church (and he includes the original language text in a note), starting with the earliest Fathers:

First, then, St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165), St. Irenæus (120-200), and Tertullian (160-240). Of these Tertullian represents Africa and Rome; St. Justin represents Palestine; and St. Irenæus Asia Minor and Gaul;—or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the Martyr St. Polycarp, who was the intimate associate of St. John, as also of other Apostles. . . .

So those are the ante-Nicene Fathers (before First Council of Nicaea); Newman continues with examples through the post-Nicene Fathers. Throughout this listing, he highlights how each Father represents a part of the Christian world. He's demonstrating Saint Vincent of Lerins's general rule for holding to the Truth of the Catholic Faith: "Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all."

You'll have to read the passages for yourself at the link at newmanreader.org, but Newman wants to remind Pusey (and Keble) what they had agreed upon when working together on the Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church as cited above:

Having then adduced these Three Fathers of the second century, I have at least got so far as this: viz., that no one, who acknowledges the force of early testimony in determining Christian truth, can wonder, no {39} one can complain, can object, that we Catholics should hold a very high doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin, unless indeed stronger statements can be brought for a contrary conception of her, either of as early, or at least of a later date. But, as far as I know, no statements can be brought from the ante-Nicene literature, to invalidate the testimony of the Three Fathers concerning her; and little can be brought against it from the fourth century, while in that fourth century the current of testimony in her behalf is as strong as in the second; and, as to the fifth, it is far stronger than in any former time, both in its fulness and its authority. That such is the concordant verdict of "the undivided Church" will to some extent be seen as I proceed. . . .

I'll stop with the citations from Newman there. I think this episode answers part of Anna Mitchell's question about how the Fathers of the Church influenced Saint John Henry Newman: they guided him--informing his great quest for Catholic Truth--to a community of faith and authority in "the one true fold of Christ" by their witness. As Joseph Carola, S.J. notes in Engaging the Church Fathers in Nineteenth Century Catholicism: The Patristic Legacy of the Scuola Romana (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2023):

The Oratorian Cardinal began his lifelong journey with the Church Fathers when he was fifteen years old. They remained his constant companions. The more than Newman probed the Fathers, the more clearly he perceived the truth that Christ had revealed. The ancient Fathers led Newman from a Bible-reading, Anglican Christianity through creedal Tractarianism into full Communion with the Catholic Church. . . . (p. 147)

This example of Newman writing to his old "creedal Tractarianism" friends demonstrates how Newman had found, beyond the study of the ancient Church, the need for what Carola calls "a theory of doctrinal development capable of distinguishing between genuine developments and perfidious corruptions. . . . For while the Fathers remain normative--they were after all Newman's first and final love--they are not an absolute rule in and of themselves. . . . (pp. 147-148)  

He found a sure rule in the living Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

NEW SRMS Series: Newman and the Fathers of the Church

Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN and Sacred Heart Radio asked me to talk about Saint John Henry Newman's study of the Fathers of the Church in a new Monday morning series. She requested this series--we've scheduled two so far--because of her participation in an Institute of Catholic Culture course: note the first paragraph of the description of Patristics 101:

St. John Henry Newman said of the Church Fathers: “They are witnesses to the fact of . . . doctrines having been received, not here or there, but everywhere . . . down to our times, without interruption, ever since the apostles.” What are the teachings of these early Christian writers whom Newman so deeply appreciated? What were their beliefs, hopes, and concerns? Do these mirror our own?

In this first (of two) semesters on the Fathers of the Church, dive deeply into the writings of the first Christian centuries and become acquainted with such figures as St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and Origen, and come to an appreciation of their specific genius and legacy for our own generation.

The second course is in session now.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later.

We'll start with an overview of how his study of the Fathers influenced Newman in his youth and in his leadership of the Oxford Movement; particularly how that study led him closer to the Catholic Church --or at least away from the Church of England -- when he studied the Arian, Monophysite, and Donatist heresies and the Fathers's roles in combating them. So this first episode takes us to the 1865 Apologia pro Vita Sua:

In the first chapter, "History of My Religious Opinions up to 1833", he highlights an early influence just before he went to Trinity College at Oxford:

Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep impression on me in the same Autumn of 1816, when I was fifteen years old, {7} . . . I read Joseph Milner's Church History, and was nothing short of enamoured of the long extracts from St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, and the other Fathers which I found there. I read them as being the religion of the primitive Christians . . .

On the other hand, he recalls that for a time, he forgot the Fathers and rejected primitive Christianity:

In the next year, 1827, [Whately] told me he considered that I was Arianizing. The case was this: though at that time I had not read Bishop Bull's Defensio nor the Fathers, I was just then very strong for that ante-Nicene view of the Trinitarian doctrine, which some writers, both Catholic and non-Catholic, have accused of wearing a sort of Arian exterior. This is the meaning of a passage in Froude's Remains, in which he seems to accuse me of speaking against the Athanasian Creed. I had {14} contrasted the two aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine, which are respectively presented by the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene. My criticisms were to the effect that some of the verses of the former Creed were unnecessarily scientific. This is a specimen of a certain disdain for Antiquity which had been growing on me now for several years. It showed itself in some flippant language against the Fathers in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, about whom I knew little at the time, except what I had learnt as a boy from Joseph Milner. . . .

The truth is, I was beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral; I was drifting in the direction of the liberalism of the day [Note 2]. I was rudely awakened from my dream at the end of 1827 by two great blows—illness and bereavement. [His beloved sister Mary died suddenly.]

So he returns to the Fathers:

There is one remaining source of my opinions to be mentioned, and that far from the least important. In proportion as I moved out of the shadow of that Liberalism which had hung over my course, my early devotion towards the Fathers returned; and in the Long Vacation of 1828 I set about to read them chronologically, beginning with St. Ignatius and St. Justin. . . .

When Newman studied the Arian heresy, he discovered the greatness of the Greek Fathers, especially Saint Athanasius:

What principally attracted me in the ante-Nicene period was the great Church of Alexandria, the historical centre of teaching in those times. Of Rome for some centuries comparatively little is known. The battle of Arianism was first fought in Alexandria; Athanasius, the champion of the truth, was Bishop of Alexandria; and in his writings he refers to the great religious names of an earlier date, to Origen, Dionysius, and others, who were the glory of its see, or of its school. The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away . . . Some portions of their teaching, magnificent in themselves, came like music to my inward ear, as if the response to ideas, which, with little external to encourage them, I had cherished so long.

In 1832, he wrote a poem about the Greek Fathers.

In chapter 2 of his Apologia, "History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839", Newman describes several of the projects of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement. Two of them he published highlighted the Fathers of the Church:

The Church of the Fathers is one of the earliest productions of the Movement, and appeared in numbers in the British Magazine, being written with the aim of introducing the religious sentiments, views, and customs of the first ages into the modern Church of England. . . .

The annotated Translation of the Treatises of St. Athanasius was of course in no sense of a tentative character; it belongs to another order of thought. This historico-dogmatic work employed me for years. I had made preparations for following it up with a doctrinal history of the heresies which succeeded to the Arian.

But it's in chapter 3, "History of My Religious Opinions from 1839 to 1841", that his study of the Fathers bring him great difficulties as he studies the Monophysite heresy and then reads an article by the Catholic priest Nicholas Wiseman (later his bishop!) during the Long Vacation in the summer of 1839. First the Monophysite heresy:

About the middle of June I began to study and master the history of the Monophysites. I was absorbed in the doctrinal question. This was from about June 13th to August 30th. It was during this course of reading that for the first time a doubt came upon me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I recollect on the 30th of July mentioning to a friend, whom I had accidentally met, how remarkable the history was; but by the end of August I was seriously alarmed.

I have described in a former work, how the history affected me. My stronghold was Antiquity; now here, in the middle of the fifth century, I found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mirror, and I was a Monophysite. The Church of the Via Media was in the position of the Oriental communion, Rome was where she now is; and the Protestants were the Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Petavius calls {115} him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order to be converted to Rome! . . .

What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate against the much-enduring {116} Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them?

Then he read Wiseman's article in the Dublin Review about the Donatist heresy, and certain words troubled Newman greatly (even though at first he did not think much of the article): Saint Augustine's phrase, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum." (The verdict of the world is conclusive):

they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that of the Monophysites. They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at first. They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself. What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment,—not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,—not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the deliberate judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible prescription and a final sentence against such portions of it as protest and secede. . . . For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had felt from any words before. . . . By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.

The complete sentence and its source: 

Quapropter securus judicat orbis terrarum, bonos non esse qui se dividunt ab orbe terrarum, in quacumque parte orbis terrarum. (Contra Epist. Parmen. 3.24)
And on this account, the world securely judges that those who divide themselves from the world are not good, in whatever part of the world (they are).

So, although Newman was not yet ready to even consider being received into the Catholic Church, he felt he had no ground to stand upon for the position he had taken in the Anglican Church! Studying the Fathers of the Church, from whom he hoped to find support for his Oxford Movement efforts to strengthen the Anglican Church's authority, had backfired on him at this point.

Later in chapter 3, he explains his reasons for writing Tract 90, again noting the place of Fathers in his view of what he called "the Church Catholic" in other Tracts he had written:

Anglicanism claimed to hold, that the Church of England was nothing else than a continuation in this country, (as the Church of Rome might be in France or Spain,) of that one Church of which in old times Athanasius and Augustine were members. But, if so, the doctrine must be the same; the doctrine of the Old Church must live and speak in Anglican formularies, in the 39 Articles. Did it? Yes, it did; that is what I maintained; {130} it did in substance, in a true sense. Man had done his worst to disfigure, to mutilate, the old Catholic Truth; but there it was, in spite of them, in the Articles still. It was there,—but this must be shown. It was a matter of life and death to us to show it. And I believed that it could be shown; I considered that those grounds of justification, which I gave above, when I was speaking of Tract 90, were sufficient for the purpose; and therefore I set about showing it at once.

As he writes at the beginning of chapter 4, "History of My Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845", after the publication of Tract 90 and the vehement condemnation it received:

FROM the end of 1841, I was on my death-bed, as regards my membership with the Anglican Church, though at the time I became aware of it only by degrees. . . .

In the terms of St. Augustine's dictum, the Anglican world had "securely" rejected his dissent where he was, in Oxford. Although he had escaped condemnation, he was in schism from the Church of England.

He would retreat to Littlemore and study the Church Fathers and Church History, in the midst of prayer and meditation, by writing his Essay on the Development of Church Doctrine.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins

Last Saturday, I watched Meryl Streep's 2016 portrayal of Florence Foster Jenkins on TCM. I had written a piece on Madame Jenkins' devotion to music for The Christian Review in 2016, emphasizing the amateur aspect of her story. Jenkins loved classical music; she had studied piano and wanted to pursue a career as a concert pianist when younger but her father threatened to disinherit if she did. When he died and then when her mother died, she inherited the family fortune, so became a great benefactress to the arts in New York City. 

Then she pursued an operatic and classical music singing career in recitals, taking lessons, hiring the hall, paying accompanists and other musicians. The problem was that she could not sing; but the question of the movie is did she know she could not sing? 

The movie is beautifully produced with 1940's Manhattan as the location: lovely costumes, gorgeous decor, etc. The problem with all the characters is that the viewer cannot trust them--except for Madame Jenkins's accompanist, Cosme McMoon. He is willing to say that she can't sing but a combination of blackmail by St. Clair Bayfield and his own sympathy for her disappointment in not being able to pursue her concert pianist career makes him stay with her and accompany her on the stage, even at Carnegie Hall. Everyone is deceiving themselves and willing to be deceived, perhaps for the right reasons (?). 

The end of the movie is poignant and I won't give it away, in case you haven't seen it. It led me to think that she DID NOT know she could not sing arias or art songs.

Here's a documentary that offers many more details than the movie can/does.

At about the same time as the Meryl Streep movie came out in theaters, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDinato starred in The Florence Foster Jenkins Story, in which what Jenkins sounded like and what she thought she sounded like are contrasted:

A mix between drama and documentary, the film explores the career of Florence Foster Jenkins. Called the worst singer in the world, she pursued a career as an opera singer, staring in the 1920s, in New York City. Despite her lack of natural talent, and vocal technique, she performed in prestigious venues, and recorded records that are still sold today. Cole Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Lily Pons, and Sir Thomas Beecham, were counted among her fans, while Enrico Caruso is said to have “regarded her with affection and respect.” She remains a fascinating figure to this day.

Reviews of this effort on Amazon.com are definitely mixed . . .

Catherine of Aragon's Deathbed in Shakespeare's "Henry VIII"

Last Saturday I participated in the reading of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. The Folger Shakespeare website summarizes the play, which is a jumble of chronological confusion and lots of plotting, thus:

Two stories dominate Henry VIII: the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s powerful advisor, and Henry’s quest to divorce Queen Katherine, who has not borne him a male heir, and marry Anne Bullen (Boleyn).

First, the Duke of Buckingham questions Wolsey’s costly staging of a failed meeting with the French king. Wolsey arrests Buckingham and accuses him of treason; testimony from a bribed witness leads to Buckingham’s execution. Queen Katherine takes a stand against Wolsey. Wolsey gives a party at which Henry meets Anne.

Henry falls in love with Anne and seeks to divorce Katherine, but Katherine refuses to be judged by Wolsey and other church officials. The king secretly marries Anne and then has her crowned queen. Meanwhile, Henry discovers Wolsey’s treachery against him. Wolsey, arrested, falls sick and dies. Katherine also sickens and dies. . . .

As Buckingham and Wolsey fall, they accept their change in fortune as matters of Fate, but as Katherine of Aragon dies, Shakespeare introduces a celestial miracle of heavenly promise, with this long description of "The Vision":

Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces; branches of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head; at which the other four make reverent curtsies; then the two that held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland over her head: which done, they deliver the same garland to the last two, who likewise observe the same order: at which, as it were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven: and so in their dancing vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues.

Perhaps the music of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel's Dream Pantomime, anachronistically fits?

Katherine wakes up:

Spirits of peace, where are ye? are ye all gone,
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?

But neither Griffith nor Patience saw her vision:

No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop
Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
They promised me eternal happiness;
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
I am not worthy yet to wear: I shall, assuredly.

The Folger website includes this commentary on the role of Queen Katherine: 

Whatever the ethics of Shakespeare’s Henry, Katherine’s integrity glows so splendidly in the play’s action and dialogue that her role has long been coveted by actors. She first takes the stage as the advocate for all the English people crushed by Wolsey’s oppressive taxes, and then she is properly suspicious, as Henry is not, of the motives of the witnesses who send Buckingham to his death. Her fierce opposition to Wolsey is repeatedly justified by the play’s depiction of the cardinal’s vices. When she is summoned to the church court that is deliberating on the propriety of her marriage, her defense of her conduct as Henry’s wife is resounding in its eloquence. She has been admired for centuries by readers and playgoers alike.

Buckingham, Wolsey, and Katherine all reflect on their falls, but only Katherine is given a beatific vision before her death. According to all the books about Henry's wives I've read she had certainly been popular among the English people during her reign, and Shakespeare (and/or John Fletcher, whom scholars agree collaborated on this play) gave her a deathbed scene that reflects that popularity (she dies offstage, of course!).

Image Credit (Public Domain): Dame Ellen Terry as Queen Katherine of Aragon

This is the last of the history plays this group has read. I joined in the middle of Henry IV pair, for part two, the Merry Wives of Windsor (following up on Falstaff), Henry V, the Henry VI cycle, Richard III, and now the last play, Henry VIII. Missed out on King John, Richard II, and Henry IV, part one. The hosts will select one of the comedies to restart our progress through the plays.

First Friday in August and Blogging Again

I've neglected the blog lately because I've been working on a project. When you're given only 15 minutes for a presentation, I've found you have to work even harder to put it together, mainly because you have to focus on what you really have to say. I've had to keep telling myself that I don't have time for this idea, or that idea.

And the project I've been working on is all about an idea--The Idea of A University, Saint John Henry Newman's great plan for a truly Catholic and truly universal University. I've been concentrating on the historical context of the his efforts from 1851 to 1858 to found, staff, promote, and teach at the Catholic University of Ireland. 

Just putting together this chronological handout for the participants was time-consuming, but it did afford me the pleasure of reading chapters of Father Ian Ker's great biography of Newman again and dipping into Wilfrid Ward's biography of Newman too:

Timeline of Newman’s involvement in the Catholic University of Ireland

'I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.’ Newman’s first University Sermon preached in Dublin, “Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training”

In England/Ireland: 1829: Catholic Emancipation Act passed: many but not all restrictions on Catholic worship and citizenship were removed in England and Ireland.

In Ireland: 1840’s: Potato Famine; typhoid, cholera, and dysentery epidemics

            Newman: October 9, 1845: Received into the Catholic Church at Littlemore

In England/Ireland: 1845: The Queen's Colleges (Ireland) Act (An Act to enable Her Majesty to endow new Colleges for the Advancement of Learning in Ireland) passed.

In Ireland: December 30, 1845: the Queen’s Colleges of Galway, Belfast, and York incorporated.

In Ireland: 1846-1855: emigration reached its peak

           Newman: September 1846: in Rome to study for the priesthood

           January 1847: decides to become an Oratorian (member of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri) priest; 

           May: ordained a Catholic priest

           February 1848: opens the first Oratory in England; June: opens the London Oratory

In England: Pope Pius IX announces the Restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy; names bishops

            Newman: November 1851: Archbishop Cullen asks him to become the Rector of a new    Catholic University in Dublin: Newman accepts

Newman in Dublin

·         5/10/1852: First of his lectures on The Idea of a University

·         June 21-24: has to leave Dublin to stand trial for libel

·         October 1852: finalizes the lectures on the scope of the university (part one of The Idea of a University)

·         January 1853: Newman has to return to England for sentencing in his libel trial

·         November 1854: the University opens and classes begin; Newman officially named the Rector; begins publishing the Catholic University Gazette

·         1855: Newman delivers his lecture on “Christianity and Scientific Investigation”, chapter 8 in “University Subjects” (part two of The Idea of a University)

·         May 1856: the University church dedicated (Saints Peter and Paul)—now named for Our Lady Seat of Wisdom

·         March 1857: Newman informs the Irish bishops that he wants to resign as the University’s Rector

·         October 26, 1858: Newman returns to Dublin for last lectures

Book Review: A Symphonic Survey of Pope Benedict XVI's Liturgical Theology

Roland Millare visited Eighth Day Books in January 2023 and I bought his book A Living Sacrifice: Liturgy and Eschatology in Joseph Ratzinger at that time (and I also gave a copy of it to my best friend last month for her birthday; she's the educated theologian; I'm just an autodidact reader).

This review from the Adoremus Bulletin by Father Paul J. Keller, O.P., summarizes the book much better than I possibly can.

What I really appreciated was the clarity and balance of Millare's writing style; his declarative yet comprehensive sentences as he described the theologian-Cardinal/Pope's interaction with other theologians. Since I have read many of Romano Guardini's liturgical theology works, I was able to follow Millare's analysis of the issues of Ethos and Logos and even the models of meal/banquet and sacrifice easily. And when Millare compares and contrasts Ratzinger's thoughts with other theologians I'm not familiar with, like Moltman and Metz, he provides the necessary detail and context, even as he emphasizes the central themes of Logos and the eschaton.

In fact, the "consistency and centrality of the Logos" versus placing Ethos at the center of theology, liturgical, moral, or fundamental is one of most crucial themes of the entire book. It informs Millare's discussion of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of the Communion of the Church and the Second Coming, with hope for the New Heavens and the New Earth, of the mission of the Church and the congregation attending Mass and receiving Holy Communion and then going to the world to share the Love of God and neighbor; and the beauty of art and architecture of the celebration of Mass and our churches, etc.

Millare summarizes his study of Pope Benedict XVI's theology of worship and the eschaton thusly on page 266:

Ratzinger describes his work as having an "incomplete character," yet I have demonstrated that there is a unity within his "fragmentary" writings that is defined by the primacy and centrality of the Logos incarnate. It has been argued throughout this book how the focus on the loges consistently unites his eschatology with his theology of liturgy, in whose orbit can also be found his Christology, ecclesiology, theological anthropology, and ethics.

The text is supplemented with extensive footnotes and a substantial bibliography. Well worth reading, even for a non-specialist. I read it after a discussion of the Resurrection and Ascension chapters in Pope Benedict XVI's Holy Week volume in the Jesus of Nazareth trilogy with my theologian friend and in the midst of the Eucharistic Revival here in the USA.

Preview: Two by Ward for the Son Rise Morning Show

For your late summer reading plan, we're going to discuss two of Josephine Ward's novels on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, July 15, after Matt Swaim and Anna Mitchell (and perhaps Paul Lachmann, the Sound Engineer and the first voice I hear when I connect with Sacred Heart Radio on Monday mornings) come back from their summer break. 

I recommend both of these books: One Poor Scruple and Tudor Sunset. 

One Poor Scruple is a contemporary novel of manners/morals at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; Tudor Sunset is a historical fiction set in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign at the beginning of the 17th century (1600-1603).

I reviewed One Poor Scruple here and Tudor Sunset here.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here or listen to the podcast later. 

Since I talked to Anna Mitchell about Josephine Ward's life and significance, I went to Eighth Day Books and bought the book that inspired her to ask me to talk about Ward in the first place: Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know. I agree with Eleanor Bourge Nicholson's comments about these two novels in her essay "Josephine Ward: Transforming a Heritage of Exile". She writes of One Poor Scruple that is an "unequivocally Catholic as well as a masterfully executed novel that well deserves the positive reception" it received upon its publication "by Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike". (p. 15) It might even be a more Catholic novel today since the issue at the heart of Marge's moral dilemma is Catholic moral teaching forbidding divorce and remarriage. She wants to be accepted in British society and does not know how to resist the temptation to a prestigious marriage. Crucially, Marge is not receiving the Sacraments!

Of Tudor Sunset, Nicholson comments "that it brings together the themes that had absorbed Ward throughout her life, especially Catholic identity and its relationship to patriotism and her conviction of the operation of grace." (p. 19) When Elizabeth I is dying, Meg Scrope, who has suffered imprisonment and the threat of Richard Topcliffe's cruel attentions in Newgate Prison because of the Queen's religious policy, prays for her salvation through the grace of God, whispering the Ave Maria at her beside on the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation.

The Josephine Ward novel I hope to see published soon is Out of Due Time, since it deals with the Modernist Crisis as described in yesterday's post on Elizabeth Huddleston's project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.”

More on Josephine Ward: Elizabeth Huddleston's Project

I do believe Josephine Ward's time for revival and reevaluation has come! (Here's some detail about the books she wrote.)

From the University of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center:

Elizabeth Huddleston is head of research and publications at the National Institute for Newman Studies and associate editor of the Newman Studies Journal. She also teaches in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. In 2024, she received a Research Travel Grant from the Cushwa Center to carry out archival research at Notre Dame in support of her project, “‘A Story of Well-Defined Purpose’: Josephine Hope-Scott Ward’s Social Criticism of Modernism.” Shane Ulbrich corresponded with Huddleston following her visit in April to the Notre Dame Archives.

Huddleston is focused on the Modernist Crisis and what Ward can teach us about it:

The Modernist Controversy has often been studied through the lens of its key figures—Tyrrell, Loisy, Hébert, Houtin, Sabatier, von Hügel, Bremond, to name a few—and their anti-modernist counterparts—Garrigou Lagrange, Merry del Val, Pius X, etc. What can be lost in only viewing the crisis through these polarized and zoomed-in lenses is a sense of how the crisis spilled into the lives of others not at the epicenter. Wilfrid and Josephine were conversant with tenets of both modernism and anti-modernism. Of course they did not want to be censored or condemned, but they also felt that the church was lacking in her relationship with the modern world. Their writings, both personal and published, reflect the tumult felt within the Catholic landscape of the era. While it is important to study the central figures and tenets of movements and crises, it is also important to take a step back and try to view the ripple effects of the crisis to the wider church. The correspondence and writings of Josephine Ward help us gain a better understanding of these currents.

Please read the rest there . . .

Years ago (pre-blog) I read Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis by Marvin O'Connell. One reason I've been interested in the subject is of course the effect on Cardinal Newman's reputation at the time. You may be sure that I'll be following this project with great interest! It especially makes me hope that Out of Due Time, the novel Huddleston mentions, might be published soon.