Preview: "The Immortality of the Soul" and The Soul of Gerontius

On Monday, November 14, Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell of the Son Rise Morning Show and I will continue our series on Saint John Henry Newman's The Dream of Gerontius. I'll be on the air about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here.

In one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, "The Immortality of the Soul", Newman spoke to his Anglican congregation on the reality of the immortality of the soul. As he so often did in these sermons, he remonstrated with them that although Christians in his day paid lip service to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, they lived as if they did not have immortal souls that would live beyond the life of their bodies after death:

And yet, in spite of our being able to speak about it and our "form of knowledge" [Rom. ii. 20.] (as St. Paul terms it), there seems scarcely room to doubt, that the greater number of those who are called Christians in no true sense realize it in their own minds at all. Indeed, it is a very difficult thing to bring home to us, and to feel, that we have souls; and there cannot be a more fatal mistake than to suppose we see what the doctrine means, as soon as we can use the words which signify it. So great a thing is it to understand that we have souls, that the knowing it, taken in connection with its results, is all one with being serious, i.e., truly religious. . . . Yet to this state of mind, and therefore to this true knowledge, the multitude of men called Christians are certainly strangers; a thick veil is drawn over their eyes; and in spite of their being able to talk of the doctrine, they are as if they never had heard of it. They go on just as the heathen did of old: they eat, they drink; or they amuse themselves in vanities, and live in the world, without fear and without sorrow, just as if God had not declared that their conduct in this life would decide their destiny in the next; just as if they either had no souls, or had nothing or little to do with the saving of them, which was the creed of the heathen.

And Newman thinks he knows why we have trouble discerning this truth in our every day lives--we are surrounded and enmeshed in a world of things, of objects, even of ourselves as objects. As he says, a child can grow up with this view and seldom think of any different sort of life:  "He views himself merely in his connection with this world, which is his all; he looks to this world for his good, as to an idol; and when he tries to look beyond this life, he is able to discern nothing in prospect, because he has no idea of any thing, nor can fancy any thing, but this life."

To comprehend what it means that we have immortal souls, we have to separate ourselves from this world: 

To understand that we have souls, is to feel our separation from things visible, our independence of them, our distinct existence in ourselves, our individuality, our power of acting for ourselves this way or that way, our accountableness for what we do. These are the great truths which lie wrapped up indeed even in a child's mind, and which God's grace can unfold there in spite of the influence of the external world; but at first this outward world prevails.

We have to be attentive to God's Providence in our lives, as He shows us how little we can depend on what we see and think so important in our lives:

And when He visits us, then in a little while there is a stirring within us. The unprofitableness and feebleness of the things of this world are forced upon our minds; they promise but cannot {20} perform, they disappoint us. Or, if they do perform what they promise, still (so it is) they do not satisfy us. We still crave for something, we do not well know what; but we are sure it is something which the world has not given us. And then its changes are so many, so sudden, so silent, so continual. It never leaves changing; it goes on to change, till we are quite sick at heart:—then it is that our reliance on it is broken. . . .

In our response to God's Grace, we hear the call to prepare for Eternal Life, for the immortality of our soul is more real to us:

And thus a man is drawn forward by all manner of powerful influences to turn from things temporal to things eternal, to deny himself, to take up his cross and follow Christ. For there are Christ's awful threats and warnings to make him serious, His precepts to attract and elevate him, His promises to cheer him, His gracious deeds and sufferings to humble him to the dust, and to bind his heart once and for ever in gratitude to Him who is so surpassing in mercy.

According to the Newman Reader, Newman offered this sermon in 1833. Thirty-two (32) years later, in The Dream of Gerontius, Newman depicts the result of such awareness of his immortality in the "Soul" of Gerontius, as he is named throughout the rest of the poem:

I went to sleep; and now I am refresh'd,
A strange refreshment: for I feel in me
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense {332}
Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
And ne'er had been before. How still it is!
I hear no more the busy beat of time,
No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;
Nor does one moment differ from the next.

The Soul knows he is alive, but does not understand what has happened to his body as he seems still to be in it yet not as he was before:

Am I alive or dead? I am not dead, {333}
But in the body still; for I possess
A sort of confidence which clings to me,
That each particular organ holds its place
As heretofore, combining with the rest
Into one symmetry, that wraps me round,
And makes me man; and surely I could move,
Did I but will it, every part of me. . . .

So much I know, not knowing how I know,
That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,
Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.
Or I or it is rushing on the wings
Of light or lightning on an onward course,
And we e'en now are million miles apart.

Then the Soul notices the presence of another: his Guardian Angel, who rejoices at the change in its responsibilities to its charge. Its work is done, as it rejoices that it helped guide this Soul throughout his life on earth to this moment. It had led Gerontius on the narrow way from earth to heaven, fighting a long fight against sin and corruption and weakness.

So the Soul comprehends what has happened and his transition from life on earth to Eternal Life is clear:

Now know I surely that I am at length
Out of the body; had I part with earth,
I never could have drunk those accents in,
And not have worshipp'd as a god the voice
That was so musical; but now I am
So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possess'd,
With such a full content, and with a sense
So apprehensive and discriminant,
As no temptation can intoxicate.
Nor have I even terror at the thought
That I am clasp'd by such a saintliness.

So I think it's valid to read these passages from The Dream in the context of that Sermon when as an Anglican he had moved away from the Calvinist doctrine of salvation and was reading the Fathers of the Church but not yet come to the fullness of Christianity (as +Father Ian Ker would title one of his books on Newman): Newman's embrace of the Catholic Faith has deepened through his years as a Catholic priest. As Father Juan Velez comments in a 2001 article for New Blackfriars, "Theological Themes in Newman's Dream of Gerontius":

In those first years as a Catholic he began to understand the important role of the sacraments in a Christian’s preparation for death [ ] and of the Sacrifice of the Mass as atonement for the lives of the faithful departed. Finally, the Dream of Gerontius constitutes Newman’s mature reflection on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory as purification of souls who die in a state of grace, a deeper awareness of the communion of saints, and his own understanding of the nature of purgatorial fire. 

When Newman composed his poem, made famous by Elgar’s musical arrangement [ ], he had reached a refined doctrinal and spiritual understanding of the Christian belief in life after death. In effect he had overcome various problems and interpretations of Calvinist and Anglican theology, and of Roman Catholic piety. [Please see the linked article for the bracketed lacuna (end notes).]

When I taught the "Newman and the New Evangelization" course at Newman University this summer, the priest who had designed the course wanted me to emphasize how Saint John Henry Newman used the imagination to help us more deeply grasp the crucial teachings of Jesus and His Church. He wants the students, preparing to be catechists in Catholic schools, parish OCIA/RCIA or CCD programs, etc, to adapt Newman's appeal to the imagination to their own efforts. 

While they--or I, or you--may not receive the inspiration to write a poem nor have the talent to compose it, the comparison of Newman's 1833 sermon and 1865 poem is illustrative. It shows that Newman not only continued to grow in his comprehension of the fullness of Catholic life, but he also continued to help his congregation, whether in the pews at the University Church of St. Mary's in Oxford or in the pages of The Month, comprehend these great Christian teachings, like the Immortality of Our Souls and the Eternal Life to come, more immediately, more intensely, and live as if--because--we believe they are True and Real and consequential in our lives, here on earth and in the life to come.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let Your perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed
rest in peace. Amen.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us!

Image credit (Public Domain): "The Death of the Good Old Man" by William Blake

Image credit (Public Domain): "Ascent of the Blessed" Detail from Visions of the Hereafter, polyptych by Hieronymus Bosch in the Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Italy