My "Newman Week"

Last week was really a Newman week for me--but one event had to be postponed because of icy and snowy weather. It seems like our weeks here in Wichita have a certain pattern: mild weekends, lovely Mondays and Tuesdays, and then stormy weather coming Wednesday overnight into Thursday. Cancellations and school closings Thursday, warm up Friday, and then warmer weekends! At least, it's happened three times so far this year.

I'd been preparing for two presentations last week at Newman University during their Heritage Month which honors both Saint Maria de Mattias, the founder of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and Saint John Henry Newman, the university's patron since 1993 (first as Kansas Newman College and then as Newman University). Both saints were born in February (she on February 4, 1805; he on February 21, 1801.) I gave one of the presentations Wednesday, February 16 at Noon (see flyer above) but was warned that the second presentation I was scheduled to make, at the Beata Banquet for benefactors Thursday evening, might need to be postponed if the winter storm occurred as forecast. And it was! I certainly hope it will be rescheduled after spending so much time preparing for it!

I'd also been preparing for our monthly Lovers of Newman meeting at the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Colwich, Kansas, which I attended Sunday, February 20. We celebrated Saint John Henry Newman's birthday with a red velvet cake (appropriate for a Cardinal!) as we read and discussed one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Love the One Thing Needful".

And of course, I'd been reading and preparing for my segment on the Son Rise Morning Show yesterday (Monday) morning, discussing the third of Newman's pre-Lenten sermons, "Prejudice and Faith", which will be repeated Friday morning February 25, during the first EWTN hour (from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central or 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern). We'll continue that series throughout Lent, using the sermons included in The Tears of Christ: Meditations for Lent edited and complied by Christopher O. Blum of the Augustine Institute. We'll select one sermon, excerpted by Blum, each week from among the daily meditations and discuss it on Monday mornings at my usual time.

And finally, following a pattern of preparation I developed in college, I read Michael Ffinch's Newman: Towards the Second Spring before my presentations just as a review of Newman's life and times. I commented on that book last week too.

And today I plan to attend the High Tea at Newman University this afternoon. This event has been held to honor the Englishman Saint John Henry Newman since the mid-1980's as this 2019 story explains!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!