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: 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!

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