The 2024 Religious Freedom Week Begins

Once again, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued prayers for Religious Freedom Week, starting today, on the Optional Memorial--their choice--of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, as the patrons of the week. June 22 is the anniversary of Saint John Fisher's execution; July 6 of Saint Thomas More's: both in 1535.

The theme for today is the "Respect for Sacred Spaces", and the reflection upon that theme mentions that "In recent years, a wave of vandalism and arson has hit Catholic churches and statues. There have been over 320 attacks so far, and that number steadily continues to grow."

Although Saints Fisher and More did not live to see it, we know that throughout the English Reformation period, during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth religious objects, vessels, art, and other devotional representations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints were vandalized and destroyed. 

Just three years and a few months after their executions, both mercifully commuted to beheadings rather being hanged, drawn, and quartered, the destruction began, as this excerpt from "Chapter 1: 1538 and after: the Virgin Mary in the century of iconoclasm" in The Virgin Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Literature and Popular Culture by Gary Waller (Cambridge University Press, 2022):

In 1538, in the late summer or autumn, in Chelsea or Smithfield or Tyburn, we can surmise – from both casual remarks recorded at the time and various histories and memoirs some years later – that one or more fires was lit and in it (or them) were burned statues, “images,” of the Virgin Mary, most probably those that had been brought from shrines dedicated to her at Doncaster, Ipswich, Penrhys, and Walsingham. Local records suggest that similar images from Caversham, along with roods from Bermondsey, Boxley, Islington, and others were added to this, or similar, fires elsewhere. In 1537, the reformist bishop Hugh Latimer had announced that in his own diocese there reigned “idolatry, and many kinds of superstition,” and during what Helen Parish terms 1538’s “long summer of iconoclasm,” he also named the statue of the Virgin at Worcester a “devil’s instrument.” . . . There are conflicting accounts on the date or dates on which such a “jolly muster” took place, and exactly when and what “idols” were destroyed, whether publicly or privately, but, Latimer pronounced, they were destroyed because they had “been the instrument to bring many (I fear) to eternal fire.” 

Here's a rather ironic line from Latimer's comments: these statues of the Mother of God, "unlike flesh-and-blood heretics, would not “be all day in burning.”" (Since Latimer was present at Blessed John Forest's execution by being burned alive, and he himself would suffer the same fate, those are eerie words to read). Notice that both men were burned alive as heretics!

And, of course, as the Dissolution of the Monasteries proceeded, more religious art and artefacts, books, and buildings were destroyed.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Seal of the Abbey of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Preview: Part Three of Three: Newman on "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life"

On Monday, June 24, we'll conclude our series on Newman's "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life" with the final paragraphs in which he sums up the purposes of the sermon. 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.

It's good to remember that the power of Newman's preaching at the time was not through rhetorical flourishes, raising and lowering his voice--mostly, he used the pause to add emphasis. Otherwise, he read his Parochial and Plain Sermons and looked mostly at his text, not at his congregation. It was his words that captivated people (even those who never shared his faith in God), his imaginative style of helping us spiritual things and ideas in new ways. Newman took as one of his models the great Roman orator Cicero, but he took the Holy Bible and, when he was an Anglican, the "Church Catholic" as he called it, searching for the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as his guides for truth and content.

The concluding paragraphs of this sermon demonstrate Newman's skill in reaching the souls of his congregation as he exhorts them to prepare to see Jesus in Heaven and their loved ones too more truly than they ever have on earth. 

Let us then thus account of our present state: it is precious as revealing to us, amid shadows and figures, the existence and attributes of Almighty God and His elect people: it is precious, because it enables us to hold intercourse with immortal souls who are on their trial, as we are. It is momentous, as being the scene and means of our trial; but beyond this it has no claims upon us. "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, all is vanity." We may be poor or rich, young or old, honoured {223} or slighted, and it ought to affect us no more, neither to elate us nor depress us, than if we were actors in a play, who know that the characters they represent are not their own, and that though they may appear to be superior one to another, to be kings or to be peasants, they are in reality all on a level. The one desire which should move us should be, first of all, that of seeing Him face to face, who is now hid from us; and next of enjoying eternal and direct communion, in and through Him, with our friends around us, whom at present we know only through the medium of sense, by precarious and partial channels, which give us little insight into their hearts.

While he challenges them to see their lives in the right perspective, he also shows them how "this attractive but deceitful world"--God's Creation!--in its beauty and glory is preparing them for even greater glory and splendor:

These are suitable feelings towards this attractive but deceitful world. What have we to do with its gifts and honours, who, having been already baptized into the world to come, are no longer citizens of this? Why should we be anxious for a long life, or wealth, or credit, or comfort, who know that the next world will be every thing which our hearts can wish, and that not in appearance only, but truly and everlastingly? Why should we rest in this world, when it is the token and promise of another? Why should we be content with its surface, instead of appropriating what is stored beneath it? To those who live by faith, every thing they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God. All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory. Heaven at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers {224} what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendours which are behind it, and on which at present it depends. In that day shadows will retire, and the substance show itself. The sun will grow pale and be lost in the sky, but it will be before the radiance of Him whom it does but image, the Sun of Righteousness, with healing on His wings, who will come forth in visible form, as a bridegroom out of his chamber, as His perishable type decays. The stars which surround it will be replaced by Saints and Angels circling His throne. Above and below, the clouds of the air, the trees of the field, the waters of the great deep will be found impregnated with the forms of everlasting spirits, the servants of God which do His pleasure. And our own mortal bodies will then be found in like manner to contain within them an inner man, which will then receive its due proportions, as the soul's harmonious organ, instead of that gross mass of flesh and blood which sight and touch are sensible of. For this glorious manifestation the whole creation is at present in travail, earnestly desiring that it may be accomplished in its season.

Then he closes with a call to repentance and the desire for God's grace and forgiveness:

These are thoughts to make us eagerly and devoutly say, "Come, Lord Jesus, to end the time of waiting, of darkness, of turbulence, of disputing, of sorrow, of care." These are thoughts to lead us to rejoice in every day and hour that passes, as bringing us nearer the time of His appearing, and the termination of sin and misery. They are thoughts which ought thus to affect us; and so they would, were it not for the load of guilt which weighs upon us, for sins committed against light and grace. O that it were otherwise with us! O that we were fitted {225} duly to receive this lesson which the world gives us, and had so improved the gifts of life, that while we felt it to be perishing, we might rejoice in it as precious! O that we were not conscious of deep stains upon our souls, the accumulations of past years, and of infirmities continually besetting us! Were it not for all this,—were it not for our unprepared state, as in one sense it may truly be called, how gladly should we hail each new month and year as a token that our Saviour is so much nearer to us than He ever has been yet! May He grant His grace abundantly to us, to make us meet for His presence, that we may not be ashamed before Him at His coming! May He vouchsafe to us the full grace of His ordinances: may He feed us with His choicest gifts: may He expel the poison from our souls: may He wash us clean in His precious blood, and give us the fulness of faith, love, and hope, as foretastes of the heavenly portion which He destines for us!

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

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

From the New Liturgical Movement: The Eucharist in Medieval England

On June 1 and 8 the New Liturgical Movement website posted two articles by Robert Keim explaining English Catholic devotion to the Blessed Sacrament--under other terms--before the Reformation. An excerpt from the first article, “The Old Leaven” of Catholic Truth, Part 1: Eucharistic Language and Eucharistic Faith in Medieval England:

The term “eucharist,” a borrowing from Greek via Latin and French, does not appear in Vices and Virtues ["a homiletic prose dialogue written in the Middle English of the early thirteenth century"] , and in fact, it does not appear as an English-language word in any document from the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons until sometime in the fourteenth century. English Catholics of the early and high Middle Ages had various other titles for the Blessed Sacrament, and these titles give us an opportunity to consider how their eucharistic language formed their eucharistic faith—and a formidable faith it was, despite the unedifying individuals mentioned in Vices and Virtues, who were surely the exception. On the eve of the Reformation, the sacramental body of Christ was still “the focus of all the hopes and aspirations” of the English people . . .

And from the second article, this explanation of King Hamlet's Ghost speaking about the untimeliness of his murder:

The most standard item of eucharistic vocabulary in Old and Middle English is also one of the most unfamiliar in modern English: housel (pronounced “HOW-zuhl” and also spelled husel, housul, howsell, etc.). This word was used as a noun meaning primarily “the Eucharist” and as a verb meaning “to administer the Eucharist to.”

Actually, countless speakers and students of modern English have seen this word, but they may not have noticed it or understood its meaning. It appears in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, when the ghost of Prince Hamlet’s father describes his murder at the hands of “that adulterate beast” Claudius. The ghost laments that he was

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible! . . .

So King Hamlet was murdered, as Keim explains, before he could confess his sins, received the Last Rites (Extreme Unction), and Viaticum (Holy Communion).

Keim concludes the second article with a quotation from Thomas E. Bridgett's History of the Eucharist in Great Britain (1881, two volumes):

For more than a thousand years the races that successively peopled [Great Britain] regarded the celebration of this Sacrament as the central rite of their religion, the principal means of divine worship, the principal channel of divine grace. The Holy Eucharist was the great mystery of faith, the object not only of fear and of love, but also of supreme adoration.

Father Thomas E. Bridgett was a convert to Catholicism as a teenager (16 years old) and served as Redemptorist missionary to England and Ireland after 1856. According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:

Despite his arduous life as a priest, Bridgett found time to produce literary works of value, chiefly dealing with the history of the Reformation in England; among these are The Life of Blessed John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (1888); The Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More (1890); History of the Eucharist in Great Britain (2 vols., 1881); Our Lady’s Dowry (1875, 3rd ed. 1890). He died at Clapham on the 17th of February 1899.

Please read the rest of these articles at the links above!

Image Source (No Restrictions/Public Domain): The Miraculous Mass of St. Gregory (some notes from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas on this Mass and its impact on a non-believer in the Real Presence)

McCreesh and Gabrieli's "The Dream of Gerontius 1900"

This latest recording of Sir Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius features period instruments--not of the Renaissance or Romantic periods, but of the early Twentieth Century. As this review from PrestoMusic's website explains:

As with all their recordings, McCreesh and his players have made enormous effort to research the types of instruments that would likely have been used at the Birmingham premiere, from Érard harps and a Lorée oboe previously owned by celebrated oboist Léon Goossens, to piston horns and narrow-bore trombones (including Elgar's own instrument).

The differences are striking and immediately apparent: from the opening moments of the prelude where violas are doubled by clarinets and bassoons, to a few bars later where the cor anglais takes over, the subtleties of Elgar's orchestration are realised to great effect. Similarly, the brass are capable of being loud without obliterating the rest of the orchestra; the way that the horns and trombones spit out their beastly contributions to the Demon Chorus is especially satisfying.

Most beguiling of all, however, is the timbre of the strings. The extensive use of gut strings allows for a haunting transparency of sound, which pays enormous dividends at the hushed start of Part Two. . . .

And I agree with the reviewer that the moment when the Soul of Gerontius sees God for Judgment is tremendous! There's a generous playlist here. Listen to the Prelude!

The vocalists are also splendid, especially Nicky Spence as Gerontius. He doesn't seem as strained by the heldentenor passages and sensitively expresses the emotions of the more lyrical moments. Anna Stéphany can't replace Janet Baker in my memory, but is quite good. I still like Gerard Finley's Priest/Angel of the Agony from Sir Colin Davis's 2008 performance much better than this soloist (Andrew Foster-Williams). Listening to some samples from Daniel Barenboim's recording by Thomas Hampson from 2017 places him in close second place.

Please note that I purchased my copy--and it came from Australia!! The two cds from Signum Classics are packaged very nicely in a book format with an essay by Stephen Hough ("Angelical Choirs") on the religious power of Newman's poem: acknowledging that not everyone who appreciates Elgar's achievement in this work has the same Catholic faith that Newman and Hough have, but that the power of the music is faithful to that religion upon which Newman based his poem. Hough quotes a letter from Newman to Georgiana, Lady Chatterton: "As to my own Gerontius, it was not the versification which sold it, but the subject. It is a RELIGIOUS subject which appeals to the feelings of everyone." (September 18, 1870.) 

You might be interested in listening to this BBC interview with Stephen Hough in which he:

reveals how Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius helped him back into the world of classical music after suffering a breakdown while at Cheetham's School of Music, and began his conversion to Catholicism as a teenager. (at 19:03)

Hough even chose the "Proficiscere"in a 2016 BBC Dessert Island Disc episode!

Mahan Esfahani, an Iranian-American harpsichordist, wrote the essay about Elgar's composition of the work and his disappointment in its first performance and its effect on his religious faith--his Catholicism in still anti-Catholic England ("Devilish Crossings"). As Esfahani notes, Elgar took a great risk in choosing Newman's poem to set to Wagnerian music for an English/Anglican choral festival. I don't think Elgar's faith ever recovered from that failure and rejection but I hope by the Grace of God, he knows what a success it has since become.

I'd recommend this set as a great addition to your Gerontius library.

Preview: Part Two of Three: Newman on "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life"

On Monday, June 17, we'll continue our discussion of Newman's "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life" on the Son Rise Morning Show. I'll be on 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.

To remind you of last week's introduction to this Parochial and Plain Sermon: Newman had answered one question: why Jacob spoke of his life, at his advanced age, as being shorter than his ancestors, and in spite of the blessing of many sons and wealth, as being "evil". That's just how human life is, Newman concludes, full of promise, disappointing, and yet inspiring the hope for something more. 

In this next section, he helps someone who has never thought of this idea before imagine it by describing how we might see it happen before our eyes:

This is a thought which will come upon us not always, but under circumstances. And many perhaps of those who at first hearing may think they never felt it, may recognize what I mean, while I describe it.

And then Newman does he does so well: he helps us picture an event and our thoughts about it so it becomes real to us!

Newman fleshes out the circumstances of one human life--of one person we think well of--who is dying and what we might think of him or her:

I mean, when one sees some excellent person, whose graces we know, whose kindliness, affectionateness, tenderness, and generosity,—when we see him dying (let him have lived ever so long; I am not supposing a premature death; let him live out his days), the thought is forced upon us with a sort of surprise; "Surely, he is not to die yet; he has not yet had any opportunity of exercising duly those excellent gifts with which God has endowed him." Let him have lived seventy or eighty years, yet it seems as if he had done nothing at all, and his life were scarcely begun. . . . His days have been but few and evil [like Jacob's], and have become old unseasonably, compared with his capabilities; and we are driven by a sense of them, to look on to a future state as a time when they will be brought out and come into effect. . . . The very greatness of our powers makes this life look pitiful; the very pitifulness of this life forces on our thoughts to another; and the prospect of another gives a dignity and value to this life which promises it; and thus this life is at once great and little, and we rightly contemn it while we exalt its importance.

And Newman has been at deathbeds and knows the truth of them: 

True Christians die as other men. One dies by a sudden accident, another in battle, another without friends to see how he dies, a fourth is insensible or not himself. Thus the opportunity seems thrown away, and we are forcibly reminded that "the manifestation of the sons of God" [Rom. viii. 19.] is hereafter; that "the earnest expectation of the creature" is but waiting for it; that this life is unequal to the burden of so great an office as the due exhibition of those secret ones who shall one day "shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." [Matt. xiii. 43.]

Reading the next paragraphs, I cannot help but think of Newman's later (Catholic) poetic meditation on death and the afterlife, The Dream of Gerontius:

But further (if it be allowable to speculate), one can conceive even the same kind of feeling, and a most transporting one, to come over the soul of the faithful Christian, when just separated from the body, and conscious that his trial is once for all over. Though his life has been a long and painful discipline, yet when it is over, we may suppose him to feel at the moment the same sort of surprise at its being ended, as generally follows any exertion in this life, when the object is gained and the anticipation over. . . . Such, but without any {221} mixture of pain, without any lassitude, dulness, or disappointment, may be the happy contemplation of the disembodied spirit; as if it said to itself, "So all is now over; this is what I have so long waited for; for which I have nerved myself; against which I have prepared, fasted, prayed, and wrought righteousness. Death is come and gone,—it is over. Ah! is it possible? What an easy trial, what a cheap price for eternal glory! A few sharp sicknesses, or some acute pain awhile, or some few and evil years, or some struggles of mind, dreary desolateness for a season, fightings and fears, afflicting bereavements, or the scorn and ill-usage of the world,—how they fretted me, how much I thought of them, yet how little really they are! How contemptible a thing is human life,—contemptible in itself, yet in its effects invaluable! for it has been to me like a small seed of easy purchase, germinating and ripening into bliss everlasting." . . . 

The regenerate soul is taken into communion with Saints and Angels, and its "life is hid with Christ in God;" [Col. iii. 3.] it has a place in God's court, and is not of this world,—looking into this world as a spectator might look at some show or pageant, except when called from time to time to take a part. And while it obeys the instinct of the senses, it does so for God's sake, and it submits itself to things of time so far as to be brought to perfection by them, that, when the veil is withdrawn and it sees itself to be, where it ever has been, in God's kingdom, it may be found worthy to enjoy it. It is this view of life, which removes from us all surprise and disappointment that it is so incomplete: as well might we expect any chance event which happens in the course of it to be complete, any casual conversation with a stranger, or the toil or amusement of an hour.

After death, the Soul of Gerontius speculates:

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.
I had a dream; yes:—some one softly said
"He's gone;" and then a sigh went round the
room.
And then I surely heard a priestly voice
Cry "Subvenite;" and they knelt in prayer.
I seem to hear him still; but thin and low,
And fainter and more faint the accents come,
As at an ever-widening interval.

And after the Soul has become conscious of the presence of the Angel:

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.

Next week: The conclusion of the sermon.

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

James III of Scotland, RIP, and the Trinity Altarpiece

King James III of Scotland died at the Battle of Sauchieburn on June 11, 1488, fighting against Scottish rebels, including his son who would succeed him as King James IV of Scotland. One reason to highlight his death is his portrait in the Trinity Altarpiece painted by Hugo van der Goes, which is on display at the National Galleries Scotland on permanent loan from the Royal Collections:

These panels formed part of one of the most important altarpieces ever painted for a Scottish chapel, and are thought to have been the wings of a triptych. The work was commissioned by Edward Bonkil, Provost of the Collegiate Chapel of the Holy Trinity in Edinburgh. (The chapel was demolished in 1848 to make way for Waverley Station.) The missing central panel possibly showed the Virgin and Child Enthroned, and may have been destroyed during the Reformation. When open, the wings show a devout King James III with his elder son and his queen Margaret of Denmark, accompanied by Saint Andrew and Saint George. The lion rampant on the king’s coat of arms is reversed in deference to the holy figures on the missing central panel. The closed wings feature a vision of the Holy Trinity appearing to the kneeling Edward Bonkil.

You may see the entire panel including his portrait here. The image I'm displaying (Public Domain) is found here.

Note that his son James IV, who also died in battle (at the Battle of Flodden on September 9, 1513), repented of his participation in the death of his father and had Masses said for his soul. According to sources cited in James IV's Wikipedia article: 

James IV bore intense guilt for the indirect role which he had played in the death of his father. He decided to do penance for his sin, constantly wearing an iron belt around his waist, next to the skin, to which he added weight every year throughout his life.[17][18]

James III was entombed in Cambuskenneth Abbey.

Newman and the Liturgy: From Withey to Lang and Velez

As noted recently, I'd dipped into Donald A. Withey's John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (London: Sheed & Ward, 1992), and used some information gleaned from it to comment on Newman's friendship with Isaac Williams. Then I finished the book and turned to Father Juan Velez's excellent survey of Newman's life and thought to read an essay on Newman and the liturgy there.

Donald A. Withey, who served on the Committee for Pastoral Liturgy of the Bishop's Conference of England and Wales and other liturgical organizations, also wrote Why Receive the Chalice? (1990) and Catholic Worship: An Introduction to Liturgy (1990/2002), and edited Adult Initiation (1989).

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican, he is focused on Newman's interests in the celebration of the prayers and liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer and his use of Roman (Catholic) Breviary and involvement in projects to translate and publish it for Anglican use. In chapter nine Withey considers Newman's conversion in light of his understanding of the liturgy and his use of Roman Breviary, especially in his Littlemore retreat while writing the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

The Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations 

Acknowledgement

Preface

Part One: Newman, The Liturgy and the Roman Breviary

One. Beginnings

Two. Newman and the Liturgy

Three. Newman and the Breviary

Four. The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One

Five. The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three

Six. The Sarum Breviary Project

Seven. The Breviary Offices at Littlemore

Eight. Newman's Writings on the Daily Office

Nine. Outcome: 'This is a Religion'

Part Two: Newman's Translations

Ten. Ten Translations

Eleven. Notes on the Translations

Appendices

One. [Liturgical] Tracts for the Times

Two. [List of] Newman's Sermons of Liturgical Interest

Three. Newman's Two Prefaces to Hymnae Ecclesiae

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Withey quotes often from the letters between Newman and others working on the Roman Breviary translation project one through three; he had access to the Birmingham Oratory Archives in the days when not all of Newman's letters and diaries were available in print. 

The Tractarian interest in the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer began with lectures by Charles Lloyd, Regius Professor of Theology and later Bishop of Oxford. In 1825 he published Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII. Newman had attended his private lectures and after Bishop Lloyd died on May 31, 1829, Newman wrote to his sister Harriet (6/4/1829):

I had the greatest esteem, respect, and love for him as a most warm-hearted, frank, vigorous-minded and generous man. His kindness for me I cannot soon forget. He brought me forward, made me known, spoke well of me, and gave me confidence in myself. I have before my mind various pictures of what passed in his lecture-room; how he used to fix his eyes on me when he was pleased, and never put his Ch. Ch. friends unduly forward. I wish he ever had been aware how much I felt his kindness. [Letters and Correspondence: 1827-1829]

The other great influence on the Tractarians regarding liturgy was Origines Liturgicæ by William Palmer of Worcester College (not the William Palmer of Magdalen College).

Newman restored elements of the Prayer Book liturgy at both St. Mary's in Oxford and St. Mary's-St. Nicholas' in Littlemore, including Morning and Evening Prayer read aloud in church and Sunday Communion services. Withey also credits Newman with "introducing the nineteenth century Church of England to office hymns" (p. 91)

In the chapter on the Sarum Breviary translation project I learned that:

Because of the conditions in sixteenth century England [that is, Recusancy, Penal Laws, Martyrdoms, etc], no attempt was made by Roman Catholics to secure the continued use of the Sarum Breviary under the provisions of the the Bull Quod a nobis, which allowed for missals and breviaries with at least two hundred years of continuous use to be continued to be used. (p. 68)

Perhaps the last chapter was the best: "Outcome: 'This is a Religion", in which Withey traces the three phases of Newman's progress to the Catholic Church and the "part played by his understanding of the Liturgy, and especially by his encounter with the Roman Breviary." (p. 102)

According to Withey's schema the first phase was "his search for the identity of the Church of England." (p. 102) At that time he believed that the Church of England was a part of the Church Catholic, one, holy, and apostolic (Credo!) as the Via Media. The second phase, through his study of the Fathers of the Church and the Anglican divines revealed to him that it might not be that Via Media at all--the Monophysite heresy and Wiseman's Dublin Review article, with the echoing refrain "securus judicat orbis terrarum"--contributed to those doubts. And third, when Newman began to test the Roman Catholic Church's claim to be that Church Catholic he sought: that's when studying Saint Athanasius and the Arian heresy mirrored what he'd found in his study of the Monophysite heresy: Rome was the One upholding the true doctrine of the Incarnation! (pp 104-105) 

And the role of the liturgy--although barely mentioned in the Development of Doctrine--was that, according to Withey, Newman saw the Church "as an integrated body, made up of interrelated elements, one of the most important of which was the sacramental principle" (p. 107). In some ways, Withey anticipates some of Father Ian Ker's argument in Newman on Vatican II (OUP: 2014), but in such compressed form that it cannot compare with Father Ker's analysis.

Once Newman--as Chesterton would later say--started looking at the Catholic Church from the inside through the Roman Breviary and being fair to the Catholic Church by studying the Fathers of the Church and their times, he came to assent to the Truth  and to become a member of the "one true fold of Christ".

I appreciated Dr. Withey's detail and narration and would recommend this book to those interested in this aspect of Newman's life.

Turning to chapter 21 in A Guide to John Henry Newman His Life and Thought, (which is now available in paperback!) "From the Book of Common Prayer to the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Roman Breviary" by Father Uwe Michael Lang (of the London Oratory) and Father Juan R. Velez (of Opus Dei and the editor of the book), here are the chapter headings:

Anglican Liturgy in the Early Nineteenth Century

    --Important for context and the most essential liturgical ideas in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer: there is no Sacrifice re-represented in the Communion Service and the rejection of Transubstantiation

Newman: From Evangelical to Anglo-Catholic Views

    --Highlights Newman's "understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice. For Newman, it became evident that the altar (thusiasterion) for the early Christians implied a sacrifice (prosphora) and sacrifice implied priesthood." (p. 379)

Newman and the Tractarians: Underlying Principles

    --Includes this discussion of the Ritualism movement in the later stages of the Tractarian movement (see John Shelton Reed's Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism from Vanderbilt University Press)

Newman at Littlemore and Rediscovering Catholic Tradition

    --Not much added to Withey's discussion of Littlemore and the Roman Breviary, etc

Newman as a Catholic Priest

    --Notes Newman's comfort in the Eucharistic Presence of Christ in the Tabernacle; mentions Newman's aims in building Our Lady Seat of Wisdom for the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, its Byzantine/Romanesque style.

Catholic Sense of the Liturgy

    Cites Alcuin Reid's The Organic Development of the Liturgy's two pages (pp 67-69) on Newman as exceptional; otherwise comments on Romano Guardini's Spirit of the Liturgy (not much Newman)

Conclusion

    --"Once he became Catholic, he truly found peace and serenity in the liturgy, even in the midst of severe external trials, and his prayerful dedication to the Church's divine worship made his priestly life exemplary." (p. 397)

Suggested Reading

Fathers Lang and Velez highlight Withey's book as the only monograph study on Newman and the Liturgy and note that neither the Oxford nor Cambridge guides to Newman contain essays on that subject and in fact, there are few studies of Newman and the Liturgy. One they do not mention is here by Father Guy Nichols of the Birmingham Oratory which highlights Newman's contributions to the liturgy at that church, architecturally and musically. Father Lang contributed this article to the Adoremus Bulletin.

There you have it: some notes on Newman and the Liturgy as an Anglican/Tractarian and as a Catholic/Oratorian priest.

Preview: Part One of Three: Newman's "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life"

For the next three Mondays in June, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show (SRMS) with Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim to explore this Parochial and Plain Sermon of St. John Henry Newman: "The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life". 

The Newman sermon reading group I attend at our local IHM Convent read and discussed this sermon not too long ago. It is beautifully composed sermon, filled with human sympathy and significance and deserves more attention than a single five or six minute segment! I encourage you to read it through because I will be excerpting passages for each segment on June 10, 17, and 24.

So I'll be on the air at my usual time (about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern) Monday, June 10 to start our discussion: please listen live here or catch the podcast later here. And remember, if you subscribe to the SRMS email, you'll get a reminder every morning of who is on, discussing what!

Newman takes as his verse Jacob's answer to Pharaoh's question ("And being asked by him: How many are the days of the years of thy life?" Genesis 47:8) in Egypt:

"The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few, and evil, and they are not come up to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers." (Genesis 47:9) (Image Credit (Public Domain): Joseph and his brothers, Jacob in front of Pharaoh. From the Haggadah for Passover (the 'Sister Haggadah'))

[If you need to, you could refresh your memory of Jacob/Israel's life with this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia!]

First, Newman contrasts Jacob's answer to the circumstances of his life, which had been long and blessed in many ways: 

{214} WHY did the aged Patriarch call his days few, who had lived twice as long as men now live, when he spoke? why did he call them evil, seeing he had on the whole lived in riches and honour, and, what is more, in God's favour? yet he described his time as short, his days as evil, and his life as but a pilgrimage. Or if we allow that his afflictions were such as to make him reasonably think cheaply of his life, in spite of the blessings which attended it, yet that he should call it short, considering he had so much more time for the highest purposes of his being than we have, is at first sight surprising. He alludes indeed to the longer life which had been granted to his fathers, and perhaps felt a decrepitude greater than theirs had been; yet this difference between him and them could hardly be the real ground of his complaint in the text, or more than a confirmation or occasion of it. It was not because Abraham had lived one {215} hundred and seventy-five years, and Isaac one hundred and eighty, and he himself, whose life was not yet finished, but one hundred and thirty, that he made this mournful speech. For it matters not, when time is gone, what length it has been; and this doubtless was the real cause why the Patriarch spoke as he did, not because his life was shorter than his fathers', but because it was well nigh over. When life is past, it is all one whether it has lasted two hundred years or fifty. And it is this characteristic, stamped on human life in the day of its birth, viz. that it is mortal, which makes it under all circumstances and in every form equally feeble and despicable. All the points in which men differ, health and strength, high or low estate, happiness or misery, vanish before this common lot, mortality. Pass a few years, and the longest-lived will be gone; nor will what is past profit him then, except in its consequences. . . .

Newman then focuses on how we view an individual human life in the context of experience and memory, as we see in someone's life the promise it held and the balance of failure and success in that promise's fulfillment:

. . . This is what we all feel, though at first sight it seems a contradiction, that even though the days as they go be slow, and be laden with many events, or with sorrows or dreariness, lengthening them out and making them tedious, yet the year passes quick though the hours tarry, and time bygone is as a dream, though we thought it would never go while it was going. And the reason seems to be this; that, when we contemplate human life in itself, in however small a portion of it, we see implied in it the presence of a soul, {216} the energy of a spiritual existence, of an accountable being; consciousness tells us this concerning it every moment. But when we look back on it in memory, we view it but externally, as a mere lapse of time, as a mere earthly history. And the longest duration of this external world is as dust and weighs nothing, against one moment's life of the world within. Thus we are ever expecting great things from life, from our internal consciousness every moment of our having souls; and we are ever being disappointed, on considering what we have gained from time past, and can hope from time to come. And life is ever promising and never fulfilling; and hence, however long it be, our days are few and evil. This is the particular view of the subject on which I shall now dwell.

Because we believe and know each person we meet and admire in some way has an immortal soul, we begin, Newman suggests, to see the difference between their lives on earth and the life to come. Even though there have been disappointments and sorrows in their lives, there must be more; it cannot be that a Good God created them for nothing:

Our earthly life then gives promise of what it does not accomplish. It promises immortality, yet it is mortal; it contains life in death and eternity in time; and it attracts us by beginnings which faith alone brings to an end. I mean, when we take into account the powers with which our souls are gifted as Christians, the very consciousness of these fills us with a certainty that they must last beyond this life; that is in the case of good and holy men, whose present state I say, is to them who know them well, an earnest of immortality. The greatness of their gifts, contrasted with their scanty time for exercising them, forces the mind forward to the thought of another life, as almost the necessary counterpart and consequence of this life, and certainly implied in this life, provided there be a righteous Governor of the world, who does not make man for nought. {217}

We'll end with this selection on Monday, June 10, in which Newman has laid out the puzzle, the difficulty we see in our lives and every human life--although he does not doubt the value of each life, nor God's purposes for our happiness through Him, with Him, and in Him!

Newman explores these issues of greatness and littleness of human life further in the next paragraphs (our June 17 episode) and then of course applies those lessons to us in the course of our lives now (our June 24 episode).

I chose two portraits of Newman to bracket this first section, one as a handsome young man and one as an old Cardinal: he lived a long life (1801 to 1890, 89 years and six months!).

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Saint Jacob, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Another Tractarian: Isaac Williams and Saint John Henry Newman

The Newman Review of the National Institute of Newman Studies highlights Saint John Henry Newman's Tractarian friendship with Isaac Williams. According to Lawrence Gregory:

The Rev. Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a contemporary of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) at Trinity College, Oxford. The son of a Welsh lawyer, he was ordained a priest in Anglican Orders in 1829, serving first as curate at Windrush, Gloucestershire. Williams returned to Oxford in 1831 after being elected a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity and became the Dean of his College in 1833 and vice-president in 1841. From 1836 he also served as assistant curate to Newman at Littlemore.

He collaborated on the Lyra Apostolica and as a Tractarian and contributed Tract 80, “On Reserve in Communicating, Religious Knowledge,” which he concluded with Tract 87. Williams also wrote Tract 86 “Indications of a superintending Providence in the preservation of the Prayer-book and in the changes which it has undergone.”

The controversy about Tract 90 meant that Williams did not succeed John Keble as Professor of Poetry as expected. In 1842, he left St. Mary's in Oxford and Littlemore, married Caroline Champernowne and the couple moved to Bisley, Gloucestershire, where he worked as a curate to Thomas Keble, John's brother. Williams became very ill in 1846 and was not able to continue in parish work. He and his wife to moved to Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, where his sister Jane and her husband, Sir George Prevost, another Tractarian, held the living. 

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (Sheed & Ward: 1992), Donald A. Withey suggests that Newman and Williams did not always agree--even though they were good friends and remained friends, even after Newman became a Catholic--on certain projects members of the Oxford Movement were undertaking. For example, in 1838, Samuel Wood and Robert Williams, two laymen, became interested in translating, printing, and selling the Roman [Catholic] Breviary. Richard Hurrell Froude had begun praying it and others in the Movement bought copies when they were on the Continent, etc. Wood and Robert Williams were financing the project with their own money, and were asking Newman, Isaac Williams, and others to translate hymns, etc. 

Opposition to the project, which kept starting and stopping, Withey says was largely aimed at Newman and "was led by Tom Keble, Isaac Williams, and George Prevost. Tom Keble and Newman disagreed about the significance of the reformers of the sixteenth century . . . " (p. 33) Isaac, Withey notes, "admired and enjoyed a close friendship with [Newman]. However, he also had a long-standing loyalty to the Kebles dating from his undergraduate days." Withey suggests that Isaac sided with Tom Keble "against Newman" -- who was also rather diffident about the project because of the cost and the care of omitting things that were just "too" Catholic--because of any "Romanizing influence". (p. 34)

Reading about these efforts to translate and print the four volumes of the Roman Breviary in Chapter Four, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One" reminded me of how delicately the Tractarians had to proceed in their overall project to demonstrate the Apostolic basis of the Church of England. They were always walking a fine line--one step too far and they would be accused of Popery and being secretly Papist while holding Church of England benefices, offices, and livings!

In the next chapter, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three", Withey describes Isaac Williams' reactions when E.B. Pusey took up the reins of the effort in 1843. At first Isaac seemed helpful and willing to let Pusey use his translations, but because "he was then moving away from his High Church convictions towards a Low Church stance"*, working with him became more difficult. He "vacillated considerably and awkwardly before making up his mind to allow the use of the manuscripts" (pp. 58-59) 

*[Note that Withey doesn't provide any evidence of Williams' change of mind in the book and I haven't researched that aspect at all. Also note: there is no good image of the cover of Withey's book which is out of print but available. Pages 168-169 in the Notes has some particularly interesting detail about how Latin was pronounced in England in Newman's time! Sister Florella, who taught me Latin at Kapaun-Mount Carmel High School always reminded us that there weren't any "tapes" of Romans speaking Latin in the Vatican archives!]

One reason Newman himself was reluctant to see the project completed was since he had obtained the late Richard Hurrell Froude's copy of the Roman Breviary in 1836, he had been praying it daily, and it was influencing him toward "Roman Catholic" piety and prayer. Even though he tried to skip certain prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, it was becoming attractive to him. 

Isaac Williams and Newman maintained their friendship after Newman followed that attraction with assent and conversion in 1845. As Gregory notes in the Newman Review article:

The NINS Digital Collections contain 26 letters by Williams. Three are from the papers of Hurrell Froude, and 23 make up his surviving correspondence with Newman. The Newman letters begin in March 1841 at the time of the Tract 90 controversy and continue until May 1864, a few months before Williams’s death. Those from the 1840s cover discussions about the growing schism at Oxford, while those from the 1850s and 60s are of a more personal nature . . .

You may find links to articles about and works of Isaac Williams at Project Canterbury.

Image Credit (Public Domain): A portrait from the Welsh Portrait Collection at the National Library of Wales. Depicted person: Isaac Williams – Welsh writer

What I'm Reading Now: "The Catholic Reformation" by Pierre Janelle

I've just started this book which purports, according to the publisher's blurb (The Bruce Company of Milwaukee) to offer a different interpretation of Church history in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries:

"The Catholic Reformation began before the Protestant Revolt as a continuation of the Christian humanism movement of the late fifteenth century. It not only amended the discipline of the Church, but exerted its influence in every field of human endeavour."

This is the thesis of Dr. Janelle's book in which he corrects the world's generally mistaken impression that Catholic Reform, commonly termed the Counter-Reformation, was a consequence of and reaction against the Protestant Reformation. Analyzing the historical movement in all its aspects, he presents the first work on this subject ever published in English. . . .

I have the 1963 paperback edition. The Table of Contents:

Anarchy the Disease Within the Church -- Early Reactions against Disease in the Church -- Reformation Again Delayed -- Preparing for Trent -- The Council of Trent -- The Religious Revival among the Regulars -- Education and Scholarship -- The Catholic Reformation and Literature -- The Catholic Reformation and Art -- Piety and Mysticism -- The Catholic Reformation after Trent -- The Catholic Reformation in France -- The Catholic Reformation in Great Britain and Ireland -- The Missions

Here's some information about the author, whose books are out of print and hard to find:

Pierre Janelle was born on the 17th of September in 1891 in the village of Mouy in the French region of Oise. His father, Ernest Janelle, was a headmaster at several secondary schools in Paris including Lycée Charlemagne and Lycée Pasteur.

Pierre studied at the Sorbonne where he graduated in 1911 as an English academic. Between 1925 and 1928 he was also the holder of the Ernest Lavisse research scholarship awarded to him by the Sorbonne. In 1935 he obtained a D.Litt degree at the same university. . . 

As well as being an English Professor, Janelle wrote many influential books on religious history particularly surrounding the British Isles. Some of his books which can be found in the university library include Obedience in Church and State (1930) and The Catholic Reformation (1949). John Swinnerton Philimore an English Catholic covert [sic]*who was a professor of Glasgow University greatly influenced Janelle's interest in Britain's Catholic history and lent him many rare books so that he could carry out his research. Janelle also appeared as a guest speaker for the BBC in July 1948 to discuss his research on the religious history of Britain.

* [a covert convert?]

I'd really love to find a copy of this book: Robert Southwell, The Writer: A Study in Religious Inspiration, published by Sheed & Ward!

To conclude the author's Roll of Honour entry at the University of Glasgow:

Pierre Janelle died on 19th March 1964. He is remembered for his gallant military actions in the First and Second World War as well as his notable contributions to education and religious historical research.

I'm also reading Roland Millare's A Living Sacrifice: Liturgy and Eschatology in Joseph Ratzinger, which I purchased at Eighth Day Books last year in January (!) when the author was visiting Wichita:

A Living Sacrifice focuses on the inherent relationship between eschatology and the liturgy in light of Ratzinger’s insistence upon the primacy of logos over ethos. When logos is subordinated to ethos, the human person becomes subjected to a materialist ontology that leads to an ethos that is concerned above all by utility and progress, which affects one’s approach to understanding the liturgy and eschatology. How a person celebrates the liturgy becomes subject to the individual whim of one person or a group of people. Eschatology is reduced to addressing the temporal needs of a society guided by a narrow conception of hope or political theology. If the human person wants to understand his authentic sacramental logos, then he must first turn to Christ the incarnate Logos, who reveals to him that he is created for a loving relationship with God and others.

The primacy of logos is the central hermeneutical key to understanding the unique vision of Ratzinger’s Christocentric liturgical theology and eschatology. This is coupled with a study of Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology with a focus on how it influences his theology of liturgy and eschatology through the notions of participation and communion in Christ’s sacrificial love. Finally, A Living Sacrifice examines Ratzinger’s theology of hope, charity, and beauty, as well as his understanding of active participation in relationship to the eschatological and cosmic characteristics of the sacred liturgy.

It's a good follow up to re-reading and discussing the chapters on the Resurrection and Ascension in Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two: Holy Week from the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection with my best friend after Easter!