Preview: The 800th Anniversary of Saint Thomas Aquinas's Birth

On Monday, February 3, we'll continue our series on the Son Rise Morning Show marking special anniversaries this year. We just celebrated the feast day of Saint Thomas Aquinas  on January 28--on the 1962 calendar and some Dominican calendars it's on the day of his death on March 7--and Dominicans and the Church are in the midst of a three year jubilee celebration. It began with the 700th anniversary of his canonization (1323 to 2023), continued with the 750th anniversary of this death (1274-2024), and concludes with the 800th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas' birth (1225 to 2025), so it seems appropriate to comment upon that last jubilee celebration.

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

We know the date of his canonization, July 18, 1323, in Avignon by Pope John XXII; we know the date of his death, March 7, 1274 in the Cistercian Fossanova Abbey in Italy as he was en route to the Second Council of Lyon in France; we know the date of the original transfer of his remains from Fossanova to the Church of Jacobins in Toulouse, France, January 28, 1369. 

We don't know the date of his birth! According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "The end of 1225 is usually assigned as the time of his birth." That's helpful?

G.K. Chesterton offers some background on Saint Thomas's birthright, if not his birth date:

Thomas Aquinas, in a strange and rather symbolic manner, sprang out of the very centre of the civilised world of his time; the central knot or coil of the powers then controlling Christendom. He was closely connected with all of them; even with some of them that might well be described as destroying Christendom. The whole religious quarrel, the whole international quarrel, was for him, a family quarrel. He was born in the purple, almost literally on the hem of the imperial purple; for his own cousin was the Holy Roman Emperor. He could have quartered half the kingdoms of Europe on his shield-- if he had not thrown away the shield. He was Italian and French and German and in every way European.

[I cannot help but recall the student blooper reported by Richard Lederer in Anguished English: "Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large."] 

To this cosmopolitan comprehensiveness in his inherited position, he afterwards added many things of his own, that made for mutual understanding among the peoples, and gave him something of the character of an ambassador and interpreter. He travelled a great deal; he was not only well known in Paris and the German universities, but he almost certainly visited England; probably he went to Oxford and London; and it has been said that we may be treading in the footsteps of him and his Dominican companions, whenever we go down by the river to the railway-station that still bears the name of Black-friars. [?] But the truth applies to the travels of his mind as well as his body. He studied the literature even of the opponents of Christianity much more carefully and impartially than was then the fashion; he really tried to understand the Arabian Aristotelianism of the Moslems; and wrote a highly humane and reasonable treatise on the problem of the treatment of the Jews. He always attempted to look at everything from the inside; but he was certainly lucky in having been born in the inside of the state system and the high politics of his day.

Because he and his family were so integrated into the power structures of his day, Thomas's choice of vocation as a young man (about 19 years old) was disappointing to his family. While he felt called to Saint Dominic's Order of Preachers, his family wanted him to become the Abbot of Monte Cassino, succeeding his uncle. He'd begun his studies at that Benedictine abbey but then went to study at the university in Naples, where he encountered the Dominican order. 

His brothers captured him as he was on his way to Paris with some friars and he was held in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca near Aquino for almost two years. His mother Theodora finally relented, and helped him escape and he was lowered in a basket to Dominican friars waiting below. He'd been studying all the time and was ready to continue doing so under the direction of Saint Albert the Great at Paris and Cologne. And of course there's the famous story of his brothers tempting him with a prostitute: he forced her away from him with a burning log and marked the wall with a cross with it, then angels visited him in a vision, promising the virtue of perfect chastity!

Except for the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist we don't celebrate the births of saints as feasts on the Church calendar, but the renown of Saint Thomas Aquinas and his importance to Catholic theology and liturgy (the Feast of Corpus Christi), etc., means that this anniversary is important as it caps off the jubilees the Dominicans and the Church have been celebrating. 

In 2027, by the way, we could highlight the 460th anniversary of his being named a Universal Doctor of the Church in 1567 by Pope Saint Pius V and this year we could also remember that Pope Leo XIII named him the Patron of Catholic schools, universities, and colleges 145 years ago on August 4, 1880!

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

Image credits (both Public Domain): top right: Detail of The Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1631; bottom left: Thomas is girded by angels with a mystical belt of purity after his proof of chastity. Painting by Diego Velázquez.

Preview: Gunpowder and Popish Plot Martyrs on "Church and Culture" with Deal Hudson

Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Deal Hudson for his Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio. Last August we talked about four Tudor era English Catholic Martyrs: two from the reign of Henry VIII and two from Elizabeth I's. 

This time we told the stories of four martyrs from the Stuart Dynasty: two from the reign of James I in the aftermath of the real Gunpowder Plot and two from Charles II's reign during the fake Popish Plot.

Background for the Gunpowder Plot ("Remember, remember, the Fifth of November"):

Catholic conspirators, frustrated by King James I not keeping his promise to be lenient with Catholics once he succeeded Elizabeth I, did plot to murder the king, his family, his Court, and members of Parliament by blowing up Parliament when they were all gathered there. They conspired to commit murder and terrorism to place James's Protestant daughter on the throne and through an uprising, take over the government and change England's state religion. It was outlandish, stupid, and sinful. 

The plot was discovered because one conspirator thought of a relative who would be in attendance and warned him not to go. Authorities searched the undercroft of the House of Lords and captured Guy Fawkes when he checked on the gunpowder, depicted above in an 1823 painting by Henry Perronet Briggs. 

He was tortured; other conspirators killed in a raid; others captured, tried, and executed as traitors (hanged, drawn, and quartered). Father Henry Garnet, SJ was also questioned and tried and executed: controversy about how much he knew about the Gunpowder Plot, how strenuously he advised against it, etc., has meant that he has not been beatified or canonized as a martyr. As I wrote in my review of Jessie Child's God's Traitors (the story of Vaux family's efforts to remain Catholic in Elizabethan and Stuart England) several years ago:

Anne Vaux feared that young men she knew well like Robert Catesby were plotting something horrible and she wanted Father Henry Garnet to tell them not to go forward with their plans. Did Father Garnet do enough? did he ask the right questions? respond forcefully enough to tell Catesby and Digby et al not to pursue whatever plot they had in mind? Those were questions he asked himself while in prison and even during his questioning. Although he did not instigate the plot or encourage the plot--he knew [something] about the Gunpowder Plot and he did not report it to the authorities, citing the seal of the confessional.

The aftermath of the Plot meant that Catholics were more restricted than before under the Popish Recusants Act of 1605 (finally repealed in 1829) with higher fines and a new oath, etc. And the government continued to search for any Jesuit priests in the country who might--because of their connection to Father Henry Garnet--have been involved in the conspiracy. Antonia Fraser wrote a book about Gunpowder Plot.

The two martyrs who suffered because of the fallout from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that I selected were Saint Thomas Garnet, SJ, and Saint Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit lay brother and the great designer and builder of Priest Holes in Catholic homes. They were arrested after hiding in Priest Holes in Hindlip Hall which Owen had built! 

Background for the Popish Plot:

Titus Oates, one of the perjurers behind the Popish Plot was not trustworthy: the Church of England didn't trust him. But once he started talking about a plot he'd discovered among Catholics to assassinate Charles II, who'd returned to the throne in 1660 after the English Civil War and Interregnum, and replace him with his brother James, the Duke of York, a Catholic convert, he found a willing audience.

He and William Bedloe developed the story for the plot, convinced authorities of its reality, and testified against several Jesuits and other Catholics. The way the Courts tried defendants--namely, the assumption that the accused was guilty and had to prove he wasn't-- and the established prejudice against Catholics (especially Jesuits; remember the Gunpowder Plot) meant it took a long time for the judges to catch on to the web of lies Oates and Bedloe got tangled up in. 

After numerous trials and executions Oates' perjury was finally recognized and he was convicted of sedition, imprisoned, and fined. During the reign of James II, he was convicted of perjury, imprisoned for life, and pilloried. William and Mary pardoned him and he died in obscurity in 1705. The most recent book about the Popish Plot is from Yale University Press, Hoax: The Popish Plot that Never Was by Victor Slater.

The two martyrs I selected for the Popish Plot or the Titus Oates Conspiracy of 1678/1679, are Blessed Richard Langhorne, a lay lawyer accused of aiding the conspirators and Saint John Kemble, an 80-year old priest who'd served in the west of England and Wales for 54 years. 

The hour-long segment will air during Church and Culture on Saturday, February 1 (3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern/2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central) and Sunday, February 2 (7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern/6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central). Listen live here. When the program has been added to the archive for Church and Culture I'll update my Facebook page.

Preview: The Anniversaries of Churchill's Death and State Funeral

On Monday, January 27, I'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show discussing some important historical anniversaries in 2025. Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will review the life and career of Sir Winston Churchill, statesman and author as we celebrate the 60th anniversaries of his death on January 24 and State Funeral on January 30, 1965.

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

I don't think there is much doubt that Winston Churchill, born on November 30, 1874, was one of the most important political leaders of the early and mid-20th century. He was the son of Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill and Jennie Jerome, an American heiress. He was a soldier, war correspondent, member of Parliament, Prime Minister (twice: 1940-1945 and 1951-1955), author and artist; he led England through the Second World War, and with FDR and Joseph Stalin, helped create a new Europe after that war. He famously made the term "Iron Curtain" a powerful image to describe the post-war aggression of the Soviet Union at a speech in Fulton, Missouri in 1946. He received many honors, including honorary citizenship in the USA.

As an author--his main source of income after his public service--Churchill wrote and published biographies, histories, collections of his speeches, etc. and won the 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."

One human value I thought we could focus on, especially in view of the anniversaries of his death and funeral, is his views on religion, particularly Christianity, including his views on Catholicism. He was baptized in the Church of England and his funeral was celebrated in St. Paul's Cathedral according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer. 

Sources indicate that he while he believed in a Providential Higher Power that guided his destiny, he rejected the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Our Savior. After years of attending Anglican church services at Harrow he decided as an adult that he'd gone to church often enough. It was his reading while in India in the late nineteenth century that formed his views on religion. According to Anthony Roberts:

In between polo chukkas, Churchill became a voracious reader, and three authors in particular plunged him into the disbelief in Christ’s divinity that was to stay with him for the rest of his life.

Although William Lecky’s The Rise and Influence of Rationalism and his History of European Morals, as well as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, established in Churchill’s mind what he later called “a predominantly secular view,” it was William Winwood Reade’s The Martyrdom of Man that convinced Churchill that Jesus was an inspired prophet but not the Son of God.

Reade was a Victorian explorer, novelist and war correspondent whose two-volume book went into eight editions over the twelve years after its publication in 1872. It employed quasi-Darwinian terms to explain the rise and fall of empires such as those of the Persians, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Macedonians and of course the Romans. Reade was particularly scathing about all forms of religion, which he dismissed as worthless superstition. . . .

Roberts quotes Paul Addison's Churchill on the Home Front 1900-1955 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992) in summary of Churchill's religious views, "For orthodox religion, Churchill substituted a secular belief in historical progress, with a strong emphasis on the civilising mission of the British and the British Empire. This was accompanied by a mystical faith, alternating with cynicism and depression, in the workings of Providence."

Regarding Catholicism, Churchill shared rather common English anti-Catholic views. As John Charmley noted in the Catholic Herald ten years ago, commenting on Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples:

Churchill imbibed, and later served up, the classic Victorian Anglican version of our island story. The medieval popes were foreign tyrants who always backed absolutism and opposed liberty. The Reformation was portrayed as Henry VIII’s declaration of independence from Rome, with the additional virtue of putting Bibles into the hands of the ordinary Englishman. This was contrasted with the obscurantism of papists like the bigoted Duke of Norfolk, who said he “never read the Scripture nor never will read it. It was merry in England afore the new learning came up.”

In a discussion of Churchill's religious views in Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill by Dr. Gary Scott Smith in Catholic World Report, Dr. Paul Kengor notes:

As for Churchill’s negative appraisal of Catholicism, Smith says that Churchill in his youth “developed a strongly anti-Catholic view, which continued into his mid-twenties.” In 1898 he wrote to his brother that Oxford University “has long been the home of bigotry and intolerance and has defended more damnable errors and wicked notions than any other institution, with the exception of the Catholic Church.” In a letter the next year, Churchill declared that “as a rationalist I deprecate all Romish practices and prefer those of Protestantism, because I believe that the Reformed Church is less deeply sunk in the mire of dogma. We are … a step nearer Reason.” Churchill declared, however, that he was reluctant to rob the lives of people who worked in ugly factories devoid of beauty of the “ennobling aspiration” that Catholicism provided, even though it was expressed “in the burning of incense, the wearing of certain robes and other superstitious practices.”

At Churchill's State Funeral 60 years ago, there was plenty of beauty, "the wearing of certain robes", and other "superstitious practices" in his view, including a Byzantine Kontakion of the Departed, "Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy Saints". His favorite hymns were included: "Fight the Good Fight", "He Who Would Valiant Be", the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in honor of his American mother, and "I Vow to Thee My Country".

His widow, Clementine, who had attended church regularly before their marriage and began to again after his death, commented to one of their daughters afterwards, "It wasn't a funeral, Mary – it was a triumph".

When he turned 75, Churchill had commented, “I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” He also had some concerns about the afterlife: "Heaven, he feared, might be an egalitarian place rather like the Welfare State, “and therefore no place for me,” although he relished the opportunity of meeting the great men of the past such as Julius Cæsar and Napoleon," according to Anthony Roberts.

None of this is to comment on whether Churchill is in any "egalitarian place" where at least every soul is a holy saint enjoying the beatific vision, of course. But it is always good to learn the truth and to pray for mercy and salvation for the dead. 

May Winston Churchill rest in peace.

Image Credit (Public Domain): 1941 photograph by Karsh.

Saint John Fisher's "A Defense of Free Will against Luther"

From an article in First Things--brought to my attention by one of my theologian friends--I found out about an upcoming publication of an important work by Saint John Fisher, the holy Bishop of Rochester, executed on June 22, 1535. The article by Michael Root, "Overcoming Theological Amnesia", argues that we skip too many centuries in our overview of Catholic theology, jumping from Saint Thomas Aquinas to the Ressourcement movement, and proposes:

We need to recover what has been lost. We need a wider ressourcement, not unlike the ressourcement of the mid-twentieth century, but one that casts a wider, more “catholic” net. The endeavor will not be easy. Late medieval and early modern theologians are hard nuts to crack. When a late medieval theologian says that a certain adjective is applied in the second mode of per se predication, one has to stop and figure out what that means. And the early modern theologians can be horribly long-winded. In many ways, twelfth- and thirteenth-century theologians are easier for us to understand than those of the fourteenth or seventeenth centuries. But the hard work will be worth it.

Root later comments:

It’s easy to anticipate the objection that a wider ressourcement seeks to perform the impossible, or at least what is impossible for most of us. Mastery of an almost two-thousand-year history of theology is more than can be expected from the theologian. Many important pre-modern theological works, especially from the late medieval and early modern periods, are untranslated, and most of us do not have the Latin facility typical of our theological forebears. Nevertheless, things are improving. The Catholic University of America Press series of Early Modern Catholic Sources is making available in English translation significant works that have been long ignored. Google Books, the Hathi Trust, and the Internet Archive make older editions available as never before.

So I clicked on the link to the CUA Early Modern Catholic Sources website and found this: A Defense of Free Will against Luther: Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio, Article 36, by Saint John Fisher; translated by Thomas P. Scheck. 

From the book's blurb:

Lord Acton said that of all the works written against Martin Luther in the beginning of the Reformation, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester's Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio of 1523 was the most important. Oddly enough this massive work of Catholic apologetics, composed in Latin, has never been rendered into the English language. It contains Fisher's detailed responses to all forty-one articles defended by Martin Luther against the censures of Pope Leo X found in the bull Exsurge Domine (1520).

In this volume Thomas Scheck presents for the first time in English translation, introduced, and annotated, Fisher's Preface to the Reader, Ten Truths, and the most important single article found in Fisher's Confutation, namely his Confutation of Luther's Assertion of Article 36, in which Fisher defends the existence of free will against Luther's claim that free will is a fiction with no reality. Fisher's reply is thoroughly grounded in Scripture and in the interpretation of Scripture found in the ancient Fathers of the Church. Interestingly to defend free will he makes abundant use of Augustine, Origen, Jerome, Tertullian and John Chrysostom. . . .

Something to consider next month!

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Book Review: The Hidden Power of Silence in the Mass

Subtitle: A Guide for Encountering Christ in the Liturgy. Please note that I purchased this book at Eighth Day Books in Wichita, Kansas. From the publisher, Sophia Institute Press:

In this game-changing book, Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B., reveals how you can actively listen and open yourself to receive God’s personal love for you in the Mass, where our Lord waits to quench your deepest longing and heal your wounds. Drawing from the wisdom of the saints, modern-day spiritual giants, and his own penetrating reflections, you will learn how to quiet your mind, stretch your heart, and become childlike in the sense of experiencing the sacred mysteries with wonder and awe.

The Mass, as most Catholics are aware, consists of words and gestures through which the Church worships the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. But as far fewer Catholics know, the periods of silence are more than pauses or empty spaces, as Fr. Hicks explains. They are beautifully textured with prescribed prayers spoken quietly by the priest, meaningful images such as incense and chalice veils, and expectant faith ready to surrender or receive from God in particular ways. Learning how to attune our hearts to these silences can greatly increase the fruitfulness of our reception of grace at Mass.

In these soul-enriching pages, you will explore the various textures of silence in general, the ways in which silence affects your interior life, and how silence can draw you into more intimate prayer. . . .

You may also read a preview on their website.

Contents:

Foreword by The Most Reverend Andrew Cozzens (the Chairman of the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress)

Introduction

1. Silence in Prayer

    Prescriptions for Silence in the Roman Rite

        The Secret Prayers of the Priest

    Learning Silence in Prayer

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing Silence in Prayer

(Each chapter ends with some reflection questions)

Father Boniface identifies five kinds of silence: Ascetical, Mystical, Sacrificial, Contemplative, and Eternal; Father Hicks treats each one in chapters following the sequences of the celebration of the Holy Mass:

2. Preparing for Mass (Ascetical)

    Images for reducing distractions

        Making room for God within us

        Stretching open

        Settling a snow globe

    Images for vulnerability

        Becoming a child

        Remembering whom we are meeting

        Entering another world

    Learning ascetical silence

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing ascetical silence

3. Encountering the Word (Mystical)

    Awe and wonder

    A pure heart sees God

        Pure heart and lips to proclaim the Gospel

        The cleansing power of the Word

    Entering the silence of God

    Learning mystical silence

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing mystical silence

4. The Silence of Offering (Sacrificial)

    Candles and Cut Flowers

        Candles

        Cut flowers (vs. potted plants)

    Our humanity becomes divinity

    The Fiery Furnace of the Altar

    Incense: Wounds Become Worship

    A Purer Offering

    The Eucharistic Prayer

    Learning sacrificial silence

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing sacrificial silence

5. Silence of Adoration and Communion (Contemplative)

    Communion with the Risen Body and the Whole Church

    His Body and Blood set us free

    Finding refuge in Christ's Body and Blood

    Our Guardian for eternal life

    Learning contemplative silence

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing contemplative silence

6. Savoring in Silence (Eternal)

    Purification of the vessels includes our hearts

    Maronite farewell to the altar

    Thanksgiving after Mass

    Learning eternal silence

        Mary's Example

        Learning from St. Benedict

        Practicing the silence of savoring

Conclusion

Bibliography

As you can see from the outline this is a very systematic and schematic book but it's not an artificial organization at all. It flows from the pairing up of the forms of silence with the sequence of the Holy Mass. Thus we do need to prepare ourselves for Mass by detaching ourselves from earthly things as we enter a heavenly celebration. Then we can listen to the readings and the prayers with awe and wonder. 

In Chapter 4, Father Boniface provides some great guidance for the laity during the Offertory, the Preparation of Bread and Wine, and the Presentation of Gifts. His emphasis on the symbolism of cut flowers rather than potted plants or flowers at the Altar and in the Sanctuary is important: they are sacrificial as their beauty will die without their roots; they are costly and must be attended to by the sacristans as offerings. He gave me a deeper insight into the use of incense during the Mass (at the beginning, before the priest proclaims the Gospel, during the Offertory, including the incensation of the congregation, and during the Canon of the Mass as priest elevates the Body and the Blood of Christ after the Consecration). I've always thought of the raising of my prayers like incense before the Altar, but Hicks comments on how the incense, formed from the sap of "a wounded tree" represent our wounds and sins healed by Christ, the burning coal: "the furnace of God's consuming love"!

As I was reading this in late Advent in the Adoration Chapel in my parish church it made me think of Saint Robert Southwell's "The Burning Babe"!

“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,

Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,

Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,

The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,

For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,

      So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”

And of course, the time after the laity has received Holy Communion needs to provide a period of silence, Eucharistic hymns notwithstanding. And remaining in silence after Mass for further mediation is important, rather than rushing out to the parking lot or starting long conversations in the pews while others are still praying . . .

In chapter six, Father Boniface comments on the Maronite Rite Prayer Bidding Farewell to the Altar, prayed by the priest after Mass. Throughout the book he also makes some comparisons between the Traditional Latin Mass rubrics, prayers, and silences (Missal of 1962 and before) and those in the Novus Ordo Mass (Missal of 1970). Often he, to this reader, has to stretch to approve some of the changes made and the options in the Novus Ordo that make periods of silence shorter or non-existent. Yes, he demonstrates that there should be silence during the celebration of the current Roman Rite, but he has to acknowledge that there is more room for abuse of these rubrics. Priests reading this book might be moved to emphasize those silences as they celebrate Mass; laity reading the book might be moved to request more silence during Mass.

The works cited and bibliography includes sources by authors one would expect in such a book: Romano Guardini, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis, Rudolf Otto, Cardinal Sarah,and of course Saint Benedict of Nursia, etc. There are also some other interesting choices: the Catholic Psychiatrist Conrad W. Baars (1919-1981), Born Only Once: The Miracle of Affirmation; James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones; Judith E. Glaser (1946-2018), Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results, and others.

I found the book, perhaps not "game-changing", but insightful and helpful to my actual participation and reception of the mysteries at Holy Mass, which I try to attend as often as possible.

Preview: Newman on the Wedding Feast at Cana and "adoring the glory of Christ"

On Monday, January 20, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will look at how Saint John Henry Newman, in two of his Anglican sermons, reflected on the Miracle of Water Changed into Wine at the Wedding Feast of Cana, described in the Gospel of John (2:1-12) and depicted above by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel. I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

In the first of these sermons, "The Season of Epiphany", sermon number 6 in Volume 7 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons, Newman examines this miracle in the context of how "the glory of Christ" is most apparent in the liturgy in that Church of England season (the Anglican Ordinariate uses the same language; instead of numbered Sundays in Ordinary Time, it lists numbered Sundays after the Epiphany):

THE Epiphany is a season especially set apart for adoring the glory of Christ. The word may be taken to mean the manifestation of His glory, and leads us to the contemplation of Him as a King upon His throne in the midst of His court, with His servants around Him, and His guards in attendance. At Christmas we commemorate His grace; and in Lent His temptation; and on Good Friday His sufferings and death; and on Easter Day His victory; and on Holy Thursday His return to the Father; and in Advent we anticipate His second coming. And in all of these seasons He does something, or suffers something: but in the Epiphany and the weeks after it, we celebrate Him, not as on His field of battle, or in His solitary retreat, but as an august and glorious King; we view Him as the Object of our worship. Then only, during His {75} whole earthly history, did He fulfil the type of Solomon, and held (as I may say) a court, and received the homage of His subjects . . .

Jesus doesn't face the opposition of the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, or his hometown in the Gospels for the Sundays after the Christmas season. Newman outlines the sequence thus:

I said that at this time of year the portions of our services which are proper to the season are of a character to remind us of a king on his throne, receiving the devotion of his subjects. Such is the narrative itself, already referred to, of the coming of the wise men, who sought Him with their gifts from a place afar off, and fell down and worshipped Him. Such too, is the account of His baptism, which forms the Second Lesson of the feast of the Epiphany, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and a Voice from heaven acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. And if we look at the Gospels read throughout the season, we shall find them all containing some kingly action of Christ, the Mediator between God and man. Thus in the Gospel for the First Sunday, He manifests His glory in the temple at the age of twelve years, sitting among the doctors, and astonishing them with His wisdom. In the Gospel for the Second Sunday He manifests His glory at the wedding feast, when He turned the water into wine, a miracle not of necessity or urgency, but {77} especially an august and bountiful act—the act of a King, who out of His abundance gave a gift to His own, therewith to make merry with their friends.

In another Anglican sermon from a collection titled Sermons on Subjects of the Day, "The Lord's Last Supper and His First," Newman focuses more on the Marriage Feast of Cana, noting that as Our Lord celebrated the Passover with the Apostles the night before His Crucifixion, He began His ministry, and confirmed His disciples' belief in Him at Mary's request at a banquet. The sermon becomes a meditation on the relationship between Mother and Son:

Nay, may we not say that our Lord Himself had commenced His ministry, that is, bade farewell to His earthly home, at a feast? for it was at the marriage entertainment at Cana of Galilee that He did His first miracle, and manifested forth His glory. He was in the house of friends, He was surrounded by intimates and followers, and He took a familiar interest in the exigencies of the feast. He supplied a principal want which was interfering with their festivity. It was His contribution to it. By supplying it miraculously He showed that He was beginning a new life, the life of a Messenger {32} from God, and that that feast was the last scene of the old life. And, moreover, He made use of one remarkable expression, which seems to imply that this change of condition really was in His thoughts, if we may dare so to speak of them, or at all to interpret them. For when His Mother said unto Him, "They have no wine," He answered, "What have I to do with thee?" (John 2:3, 4) He had had to do with her for thirty years. She had borne Him, she had nursed Him, she had taught Him. And when He had reached twelve years old, at the age when the young may expect to be separated from their parents, He had only become more intimately one with them, for we are told that "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." (Luke 2:51)

Rather poignantly, Newman reflects on how Jesus will soon part from His Mother at the end of these "hidden years" in Nazareth: 

Eighteen years had passed away since this occurred. St. Joseph (as it seems) had been taken to his rest. Mary remained; but from Mary, His Mother, He must now part, for the three years of His ministry. He had gently intimated this to her at the very time of His becoming subject to her, intimated that His heavenly Father's work was a higher call than any earthly duty. "Wist ye not," He said, when found in the Temple, "that I must be about My Father's business?" (Luke 2:49.) The time was now come when this was to be fulfilled, and, therefore, when His Mother addressed Him at the marriage feast, He answered, "What have I to do with thee?" What is between Me and thee, My Mother, any longer? "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand." (Mark 1:15)

Newman continues to emphasize this separation between Mother and Son, highlighting those passages from Matthew (12:48-50) and Luke (11:27-28) in which His Mother is mentioned. Then he concludes:

Nor is there any token recorded in the Gospels of His affection for His Mother, till His ministry was brought to an end, and we know well what were the tender words which almost immediately preceded "It is finished." His love revived, that is, He allowed it to appear, as His Father's work was ending. "There stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary {34} the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy Mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." (John 19:25-27)

He took leave then of His Mother at a feast, as He afterwards took leave of His disciples at a feast. . . . 

[The illustration above is (Public Domain) is of Jesus leaving His Mother as Peter and the others wait for Him by Bernhard Strigel, a 16th century German painter to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.]

Among the meditations on the Litany of Loreto Newman wrote years later as a Catholic priest at the Birmingham Oratory, we can find an echo of these thoughts about Jesus and His Mother:

For thirty years she was blessed with the continual presence of her Son—nay, she had Him in subjection. But the time came when that war called for Him for which He had come upon earth. Certainly He came, not simply to be the Son of Mary, but to be the Saviour of Man, and {47} therefore at length He parted from her. She knew then what it was to be the mother of a soldier. He left her side; she saw Him no longer; she tried in vain to get near Him. He had for years lived in her embrace, and after that, at least in her dwelling—but now, in His own words, "The Son of Man had not where to lay His head." And then, when years had run out, she heard of His arrest, His mock trial, and His passion. At last she got near Him—when and where?—on the way to Calvary: and when He had been lifted upon the Cross. And at length she held Him again in her arms: yes—when He was dead. True, He rose from the dead; but still she did not thereby gain Him, for He ascended on high, and she did not at once follow Him.

At the end of the first sermon, "The Season of Epiphany", Newman describes how the liturgical seasons of the Church should teach us a lesson about the seasons of our lives:

For all seasons we must thank Him, for time of sorrow and time of joy, time of warfare and time of peace. And the more we thank Him for the one, the more we shall be drawn to thank Him for the other. Each has its own proper fruit, and its own peculiar blessedness. Yet our mortal flesh shrinks from the one, and of itself prefers the other;—it prefers rest to toil, peace to war, joy to sorrow, health to pain and sickness. When then Christ gives us what is pleasant, let us take it as a refreshment by the way, that we may, when God calls, go in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. Let us rejoice in Epiphany with trembling, that at Septuagesima we may go into the vineyard with the labourers with cheerfulness, and may sorrow in Lent with thankfulness; let us rejoice now, not as if we have attained, but in hope of attaining. Let us take our present happiness, not as our true rest, but, as what the land of Canaan was to the Israelites,—a type and shadow of it. If we now {85} enjoy God's ordinances, let us not cease to pray that they may prepare us for His presence hereafter. If we enjoy the presence of friends, let them remind us of the communion of saints before His throne. Let us trust in nothing here, yet draw hope from every thing—that at length the Lord may be our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning may be ended.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Newman on "Love, the One Thing Needful" on SRMS

Last Monday, January 6, the winter storm meant a couple of snow days for the Son Rise Morning Show team, so we skipped the Newman sermon we planned to discuss that day. We'll close out our Newman Advent/Christmas series with a Parochial and Plain Sermon, "Love the One Thing Needful". There's an excerpted portion of this sermon in Christopher O. Blum's Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Advent and Christmas.

So, on Monday, January 13, I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

As we are at the beginning of a New Year, even though the Christmas season has technically come to an end with the celebration of Our Lord's Baptism on Sunday, January 12, this sermon seems appropriate. At daily Mass we have been reading so much about love from the First Letter of Saint John; we are all in the midst of making, breaking, and remaking New Year's Resolutions; Newman seems to understand and to be encouraging us to remain resolute:

I suppose the greater number of persons who try to live Christian lives, and who observe themselves with any care, are dissatisfied with their own state on this point, namely. that, whatever their religious attainments may be, yet they feel that their motive is not the highest;—that the love of God, and of man for His sake, is not their ruling principle. They may do much, nay, if it so happen, they may suffer much; but they have little reason to think that they love much, that they do and suffer for love's sake. I do not mean that they thus express themselves exactly, but that they are dissatisfied with themselves, and that when this dissatisfaction is examined into, it will be found ultimately to come to this, though they will give different accounts of it. They may call themselves cold, or hard-hearted, or fickle, or double-minded, or doubting, or dim-sighted, or {328} weak in resolve, but they mean pretty much the same thing, that their affections do not rest on Almighty God as their great Object. And this will be found to be the complaint of religious men among ourselves, not less than others; their reason and their heart not going together; their reason tending heavenwards, and their heart earthwards.

As he points out, Jesus has told us "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15), but we may "feel that though [we] are, to a certain point, keeping God's commandments, yet love is not proportionate, does not keep pace, with [our] obedience; that obedience springs from some source short of love." We can feel "hollow; a fair outside, without a spirit within it." We can be conscientious; we can want to obey His commandments, and yet we can feel that something is missing. 

And Newman has some suggestions for how we can deal with these conflicts:

First, he recommends detachment:

Till we, in a certain sense, detach ourselves from our bodies, our minds will not be in a state to receive divine impressions, and to exert heavenly aspirations. A smooth and easy life, an uninterrupted enjoyment of the goods of Providence, full meals, soft raiment, well-furnished homes, the pleasures of sense, the feeling of security, the consciousness of wealth,—these, and the like, if we are not careful, choke up all the avenues of the soul, through which the light and breath of heaven might come to us. A hard life is, alas! no certain method of becoming spiritually minded, but it is one out of the means by which Almighty God makes us so. We must, at least at seasons, defraud ourselves of nature, if we would not be {338} defrauded of grace. If we attempt to force our minds into a loving and devotional temper, without this preparation, it is too plain what will follow: the grossness and coarseness, the affectation, the unreality, the presumption, the hollowness, in a word, what Scripture calls the Hypocrisy, which we see around us; that state of mind in which the reason, seeing what we should be, and the conscience enjoining it, and the heart being unequal to it, some or other pretence is set up, by way of compromise.

Then, we should think about what Jesus suffered for us, "to cherish . . . a constant sense of the love of [our] Lord and Saviour in dying on the cross" for us:

Think of the Cross when you rise and when you lie down, when you go out and when you come in, when you eat and when you walk and when you converse, when you buy and when you sell, when you labour and when you rest, consecrating and sealing all your doings with this one mental action, the thought of the Crucified. Do not talk of it to others; be silent, like the penitent woman, who showed her love in deep subdued acts. She "stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the Ointment." And Christ said of her, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." [Luke vii. 38, 47.]

And finally, we should think about the blessings we have received:

And, further, let us dwell often upon those His manifold mercies to us and to our brethren, which are the consequence of His coming upon earth; His adorable counsels, as manifested in our personal election,—how it is that we are called and others not; the wonders of His grace towards us, from our infancy until now; the gifts He has given us; the aid He has vouchsafed; the answers He has accorded to our prayers. And, further, let us, as far as we have the opportunity, meditate upon His dealings with His Church from age to age; on His faithfulness to His promises, and the mysterious mode of their fulfilment; how He has ever led His people forward safely and prosperously on the whole amid so many enemies; what unexpected events have worked {340} His purposes; how evil has been changed into good; how His sacred truth has ever been preserved unimpaired; how Saints have been brought on to their perfection in the darkest times. And, further, let us muse over the deep gifts and powers lodged in the Church: what thoughts do His ordinances raise in the believing mind!—what wonder, what awe, what transport, when duly dwelt upon!

Newman delivered this sermon at the end of the pre-Lenten period called Septuagesima, on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday (Quinquagesima), and he ends with these final words of encouragement:

It is by such deeds and such thoughts that our services, our repenting, our prayers, our intercourse with men, will become instinct with the spirit of love. Then we do everything thankfully and joyfully, when we are temples of Christ, with His Image set up in us. Then it is that we mix with the world without loving it, for our affections are given to another. We can bear to look on the world's beauty, for we have no heart for it. We are not disturbed at its frowns, for we live not in its smiles. We rejoice in the House of Prayer, because He is there "whom our soul loveth." We can condescend to the poor and lowly, for they are the presence of Him who is Invisible. We are patient in bereavement, adversity, or pain, for they are Christ's tokens.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us! 

Preview: Newman on "The Mystery of Divine Condescension"

Happy New Year!

We'll resume our Advent/Christmas series on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, January 6, 2025 (the traditional date of Epiphany) with one of Saint John Henry Newman's Catholic sermons, "The Mystery of Divine Condescension", from his Discourses to Mixed Congregations. 

Newman dedicated his first published work as a priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri to the then Bishop of Melipotamus and Vicar Apostolic of the London District, Nichols Wiseman, in 1849 (before the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850--when he would become the first Archbishop of Westminster). In his great biography of Newman, Father Ian Ker notes that the rhetoric in these sermons "is often more Italianate than Newmanian"! (p. 342)

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Newman's topic, of course, is the Incarnation and his purpose is to persuade his congregation to appreciate, as much as is humanly possible, the great mystery of God deigning, not just to come down to us as an infant in Bethlehem, to give us grace, and to redeem us, but to raise us up to be like Him. Then he presents us with an even greater challenge in this mystery.

There are indeed some glorious passages in his sermon (which you can read in its entirety here). I'm focusing on the paragraphs excerpted in Christopher O. Blum's Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Advent and Christmas:

You say that God and man never can be one, that man cannot bear the sight and touch of his Creator, nor the Creator condescend to the feebleness of the creature; but blush and be confounded to hear, O peevish, restless hearts, that He has come down from His high throne and humbled Himself to the creature, in order that the creature might be inspired and strengthened to rise to Him.

Your God has taken on Him your nature, and now prepare yourself to see in human flesh that glory and that beauty on which the Angels gaze. Since you are to see Emmanuel, since "the brilliancy of the Eternal Light and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the Image of His goodness," is to walk the earth, since the Son of the Highest is to be born of woman, since the manifold attributes of the Infinite are to be poured out before your eyes through material channels and the operations of a human soul, since He, whose contemplation did but trouble you in Nature, is coming to take you captive by a manifestation, which is both intelligible to you and a pledge that He loves you one by one, raise high your expectations, for surely they cannot suffer disappointment.

But even that is not enough, because Newman contrasts the glory we could expect from the Son of God becoming man to what we know of how Jesus lived among us; we think:

doubtless He will choose some calm and holy spot, and men will go out thither and find their Incarnate God. He will be tenant of some paradise, like Adam or Elias, or He will dwell in the mystic garden of the Canticles, where nature ministers its {301} best and purest to its Creator. "The fig-tree will put forth her green figs, the vines in flower yield their sweet smell;" "spikenard and saffron" will be there; "the sweet cane and cinnamon, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief perfumes;" "the glory of Libanus, the beauty of Carmel," before "the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God". There will He show Himself at stated times, with Angels for His choristers and saints for His doorkeepers, to the poor and needy, to the humble and devout, to those who have kept their innocence undefiled, or have purged their sins away by long penance and masterful contrition.

Instead, 

He has come, not to assert a claim, but to pay a debt. Instead of wealth, He has come poor; instead of honour, He has come in ignominy; instead of blessedness, He has come to suffer. He has been delivered over from His birth to pain and contempt; His delicate frame is worn down by cold and heat, by hunger and sleeplessness; His hands are rough and bruised with {302} a mechanic's toil; His eyes are dimmed with weeping; His Name is cast out as evil. He is flung amid the throng of men; He wanders from place to place; He is the companion of sinners. . . . He hath no beauty nor comeliness; He is despised and the most abject of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity;" nay, He is a "leper, and smitten of God, and afflicted". And so His clothes are torn off, and He is lifted up upon the bitter Cross, and there He hangs, a spectacle for profane, impure, and savage eyes, and a mockery for the evil spirit whom He had cast down into hell.  

We have travelled from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem and finally to Golgotha. 

Finally, Newman offers a different model for us to follow when we struggle to comprehend this tremendous, mysterious condescension--His Mother:

Oh, wayward man! . . . when wilt thou cease to make thyself thine own centre, and learn that God is infinite in all He does, infinite when He reigns in heaven, infinite when He serves on earth, exacting our homage in the midst of His Angels, and winning homage from us in the midst of sinners? Adorable He is in His eternal rest, adorable in the glory of His court, adorable in the beauty of His works, most adorable of all, most royal, most persuasive in His deformity. Think you {303} not, my brethren, that to Mary, when she held Him in her maternal arms, when she gazed on the pale countenance and the dislocated limbs of her God, when she traced the wandering lines of blood, when she counted the weals, the bruises, and the wounds, which dishonoured that virginal flesh, think you not that to her eyes it was more beautiful than when she first worshipped it, pure, radiant, and fragrant, on the night of His nativity?

These passages may be, as Newman himself commented, "more rhetorical than my former sermons" in a letter (LD, xiii, 335, according to Father Ker), but that rhetoric certainly has a great impact, offering us, as we conclude this Christmas season after the Baptism of Our Lord, insights into "The Mystery of Divine Condescension". Like the hymn, "What Child is This?", Newman brings the Nativity and the Passion together:

Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce him through,
The Cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word Made Flesh,
The babe, the son of Mary!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!