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!

Preview: Newman on the Holy Spirit and the "Our Father"

On Monday, May 20, I mentioned that Saint John Henry Newman in his sermon "The Indwelling Spirit" had included an analysis of how the Holy Spirit inspires us to pray the Our Father (The Lord's Prayer), as the model Jesus taught His Apostles in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Anna Mitchell asked me to explain this further on the Son Rise Morning Show on another broadcast.

Since Monday, May 27 was Memorial Day and they ran a "Best of the Son Rise Morning Show" program, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show to cover this passage on Monday, June 3 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.

Newman's exposition on how the Holy Spirit helps us pray "The Our Father" occurs in the section on how the Holy Spirit helps us relate to Our Father:

Being then the sons of God, and one with Him, our souls mount up and cry to Him continually. This special characteristic of the regenerate soul is spoken of by St. Paul soon after the text. "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Nor are we left to utter these cries to Him, in any vague uncertain way of our own; but He who sent the Spirit to dwell in us habitually, gave us also a form of words to sanctify the separate acts of our minds. Christ left His sacred Prayer to be the peculiar possession of His people, and the voice of the Spirit. If we examine it, we shall find in it the substance of that doctrine, to which St. Paul has given a name in the passage just quoted.

So the Holy Spirit helps us pray to the Father as the Son taught us, not just saying the words but reflecting upon their meaning:

Our Father:

We begin it by using our privilege of calling on Almighty God in express words as "Our Father."

Who art in Heaven; Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom Come; Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven: 

We proceed, according to this beginning, in that waiting, trusting, adoring, resigned temper, which children ought to feel; looking towards Him, rather than thinking of ourselves; zealous for His honour rather than fearful about our safety;

Give us this day our daily bread:

resting in His present help, not with eyes timorously glancing towards the future.

His name, His kingdom, His will, are the {226} great objects for the Christian to contemplate and make his portion, being stable and serene, and "complete in Him," as beseems one who has the gracious presence of His Spirit within him.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil:

And, when he goes on to think of himself, he prays, that he may be enabled to have towards others what God has shown towards himself, a spirit of forgiveness and loving-kindness. Thus he pours himself out on all sides, first looking up to catch the heavenly gift, but, when he gains it, not keeping it to himself, but diffusing "rivers of living water" to the whole race of man, thinking of self as little as may be, and desiring ill and destruction to nothing but that principle of temptation and evil, which is rebellion against God;

And from some later manuscripts, as used in the Book of Common Prayer:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

—lastly, ending, as he began, with the contemplation of His kingdom, power, and glory ever-lasting.

This is the true "Abba, Father," which the Spirit of adoption utters within the Christian's heart, the infallible voice of Him who "maketh intercession for the Saints in God's way."  

In his final remarks about how the Holy Spirit inspires the Christian to pray the Lord's Prayer well to the Father, Newman advises her to silence and contemplation instead of sharing some special favors she thinks she may have received:

And if he has at times, for instance, amid trial or affliction, special visitations and comfortings from the Spirit, "plaints unutterable" within him, yearnings after the life to come, or bright and passing gleams of God's eternal election, and deep stirrings of wonder and thankfulness thence following, he thinks too reverently of "the secret of the Lord," to betray (as it were) His confidence, and, by vaunting it to the world, to exaggerate it perchance into more than it was meant to convey: but he is silent, and ponders it as choice encouragement to his soul, meaning something, but he knows not how much.

This discernment and care about responding to graces received--especially with "vaunting them to the world"--I think is reinforced by Newman's exhortation at the end of the sermon:

Thoughts, such as these, will affect us rightly, if they make us fear and be watchful, while we rejoice. They cannot surely do otherwise; for the mind of a Christian, as I have been attempting to describe it, is not so much what we have, as what we ought to have. . . . It is our concern only to look to ourselves, and to see that, as we have received the gift, we "grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption;" remembering that "if any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy."

Instead of exaggerating the spiritual or moral privileges we may have received through the Grace of God in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we should respond with humility and fear of the Lord:

This reflection and the recollection of our many backslidings, will ever keep us, please God, from judging others, or from priding ourselves on our privileges. Let us but consider how we have fallen from the light and grace of our Baptism. Were we now what that Holy Sacrament made us, we might ever ''go on our way rejoicing;" but having sullied our heavenly garments, in one way or other, in a greater or less degree (God knoweth! and our own consciences too in a measure), alas! the Spirit of adoption has in part receded from us, and the sense of guilt, remorse, sorrow, and penitence must take His place. 

We need to know how we have failed to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to live out the "light and grace of our Baptism", so we may respond appropriately to any suffering that comes:

We must renew our confession, and seek afresh our absolution day by day, before we dare call upon God as "our Father," or offer up Psalms and Intercessions to Him. And, whatever pain and affliction meets us through life, we must take it as a merciful penance imposed by a Father upon erring children, to be borne meekly and thankfully, and as intended to remind us of the weight of that infinitely greater punishment, which was our desert by nature, and which Christ bore for us on the Cross.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): "The Lord's Prayer" by James Tissot

Preview: Newman's "The Indwelling Spirit" for Pentecost

On Monday, May 20, we'll conclude our Easter Season Sermon Series on the Son Rise Morning Show with St. John Henry Newman's Pentecost reflections in "The Indwelling Spirit", number 19 in Volume Two of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, based on the verse "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." (Romans 8:9).

This is a long sermon, almost 4,300 words, filled with Trinitarian doctrine, and I've been most selective in what I'm previewing here. 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.

In the three main sections of this sermon, Newman explains what the presence of the Holy Spirit in our souls, received in the Sacrament of Baptism through Regeneration and New Birth, means for our relationship to the Father, and to the Son, and to other men and women.

To the Father:

The heavenly gift of the Spirit fixes the eyes of our mind upon the Divine Author of our salvation. By nature we are blind and carnal; but the Holy Ghost by whom we are new-born, reveals to us the God of mercies, and bids us recognise and adore Him as our Father with a true heart. He impresses on us our Heavenly Father's image, which we lost when Adam {225} fell, and disposes us to seek His presence by the very instinct of our new nature. He gives us back a portion of that freedom in willing and doing, of that uprightness and innocence, in which Adam was created. He unites us to all holy beings, as before we had relationship with evil. He restores for us that broken bond, which, proceeding from above, connects together into one blessed family all that is anywhere holy and eternal, and separates it off from the rebel world which comes to nought. Being then the sons of God, and one with Him, our souls mount up and cry to Him continually.

To the Son:

The Spirit came especially to "glorify" Christ; and vouchsafes to be a shining light within the Church and the individual Christian, reflecting the Saviour of the world in all His perfections, all His offices, all His works. He came for the purpose of unfolding what was yet hidden, whilst Christ was on earth; and speaks on the house-tops what was delivered in closets, disclosing Him in the glories of His transfiguration, who once had no comeliness in His outward form, and was but a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. First, He inspired the Holy Evangelists to record the life of Christ, and directed them which of His words and works to select, which to omit; next, He commented (as it were) upon these, and unfolded their meaning in the Apostolic Epistles. The birth, the life, the death and resurrection of Christ, has been the text which He has illuminated. He has made history to be doctrine; telling us plainly, whether by St. John or St. Paul, that Christ's conception and birth was the real Incarnation of the Eternal Word,—His life, "God manifest in the Flesh,"—His death and {228} resurrection, the Atonement for sin, and the Justification of all believers. Nor was this all: he continued His sacred comment in the formation of the Church, superintending and overruling its human instruments, and bringing out our Saviour's words and works, and the Apostles' illustrations of them, into acts of obedience and permanent Ordinances, by the ministry of Saints and Martyrs. Lastly, He completes His gracious work by conveying this system of Truth, thus varied and expanded, to the heart of each individual Christian in whom He dwells. Thus He vouchsafes to edify the whole man in faith and holiness: "casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." [2 Cor. x. 5.]

To our brothers and sisters:

What is fulness of joy but peace? Joy is tumultuous only when it is not full; but peace is the privilege of those who are "filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." [Isa. xxvi. 3.] It is peace, springing from trust and innocence, and then overflowing in love towards all around him. What is the effect of mere animal ease and enjoyment, but to make a man pleased with everything which happens? "A merry heart is a perpetual feast;" and such is peculiarly the blessing of a soul rejoicing in the faith and fear of God. He who is anxious, thinks of himself, is suspicious of danger, speaks hurriedly, and has no time for the interests of others; he who lives in peace is at leisure, wherever his lot is cast. Such is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, whether in Jew or Greek, bond or free. He Himself perchance in His mysterious nature, is the Eternal Love whereby the Father and the Son have dwelt in each other, as ancient writers have believed; and what He is in heaven, that {230} He is abundantly on earth. He lives in the Christian's heart, as the never-failing fount of charity, which is the very sweetness of the living waters. For where He is, "there is liberty" from the tyranny of sin, from the dread, which the natural man feels, of an offended, unreconciled Creator. Doubt, gloom, impatience have been expelled; joy in the Gospel has taken their place, the hope of heaven and the harmony of a pure heart, the triumph of self-mastery, sober thoughts, and a contented mind. How can charity towards all men fail to follow, being the mere affectionateness of innocence and peace? Thus the Spirit of God creates in us the simplicity and warmth of heart which children have, nay, rather the perfections of His heavenly hosts, high and low being joined together in His mysterious work; for what are implicit trust, ardent love, abiding purity, but the mind both of little children and of the adoring Seraphim!

As always, Newman concludes his sermon with spiritual advice, exhorting us to avoid judging others but consider our own faults and failures (sins), repent, and bear our penances "meekly and thankfully":

This reflection and the recollection of our many backslidings, will ever keep us, please God, from judging others, or from priding ourselves on our privileges. Let us but consider how we have fallen from the light and grace of our Baptism. Were we now what that Holy Sacrament made us, we might ever ''go on our way rejoicing;" but having sullied our heavenly garments, in one way or other, in a greater or less degree (God knoweth! and our own consciences too in a measure), alas! the Spirit of adoption has in part receded from us, and the sense of guilt, remorse, sorrow, and penitence must take His place. We must renew our confession, and seek afresh our absolution day by day, before we dare call upon God as "our Father," or offer up Psalms and Intercessions to Him. And, whatever pain and affliction meets us through life, we must take it as a merciful penance imposed by a Father upon erring children, to be borne meekly and thankfully, and as intended to remind us of the weight of that infinitely greater punishment, which was our desert by nature, and which Christ bore for us on the Cross.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Newman's Sermon for the Ascension of Christ

Since by then we will have celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, either on Thursday, May 9 or Sunday, May 12, it seems appropriate to continue our Son Rise Morning Show Easter Season series with Newman's sermon "Mysteries in Religion" on Monday, May 13.

So 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 and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

This is sermon number 18 in volume two of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, featuring the verse "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us." (Romans 8:34)

Newman is focused in this sermon on helping his congregation delve more deeply into the mysteries of the Ascension. They've heard this story many times before; they--we--may have begun to take it for granted. Yet the Ascension is not just an event in the past. It influences, or should influence, our lives as Christians centuries after Jesus ascended to the Father and yet promised to remain with us always and intercede for us:

{206} [Note 1] THE Ascension of our Lord and Saviour is an event ever to be commemorated with joy and thanksgiving, for St. Paul tells us in the text that He ascended to the right hand of God, and there makes intercession for us. Hence it is our comfort to know, that "if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins." [1 John ii. 1, 2.] As the Jewish High Priest, after the solemn sacrifice for the people on the great day of Atonement, went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the victim, and sprinkled it upon the Mercy-Seat, so Christ has entered into Heaven itself, to present (as it were) before the Throne that sacred Tabernacle which was the instrument of His passion,—His pierced hands and wounded {207} side,—in token of the atonement which He has effected for the sins of the world.

Wonder and awe must always mingle with the thankfulness which the revealed dispensation of mercy raises in our minds. And this, indeed, is an additional cause of thankfulness, that Almighty God has disclosed to us enough of His high Providence to raise such sacred and reverent feelings. Had He merely told us that He had pardoned us, we should have had overabundant cause for blessing and praising Him; but in showing us somewhat of the means, in vouchsafing to tell what cannot wholly be told, in condescending to abase heavenly things to the weak and stammering tongues of earth, He has enlarged our gratitude, yet sobered it with fear. We are allowed with the Angels to obtain a glimpse of the mysteries of Heaven, "to rejoice with trembling." Therefore, so far from considering the Truths of the Gospel as a burden, because they are beyond our understanding, we shall rather welcome them and exult in them, nay, and feel an antecedent stirring of heart towards them, for the very reason that they are above us. Under these feelings I will attempt to suggest to you on the present Festival some of the incentives to wonder and awe, humility, implicit faith, and adoration, supplied by the Ascension of Christ.

As Newman lists these reasons for wonder and awe, etc., he confronts the limitations of philosophy and science--and indeed of our intellects and reasoning--to deal with these true mysteries. As an Oxford scholar and Fellow/Tutor, Newman values the human intellect and our ability to reason but he sees our limitations withal.

For example: the fact proved by the bodily Ascension of Our Lord to Heaven that Heaven is a place, is real and fixed:

First, Christ's Ascension to the right hand of God is marvellous, because it is a sure token that heaven is a certain fixed place, and not a mere state. That bodily presence of the Saviour which the Apostles handled is not here; it is elsewhere,—it is in heaven. This contradicts the notions of cultivated and speculative minds, {208} and humbles the reason.

This may seem to contradict science, but Newman offers a means of dealing with this (like Shakespeare's Hamlet admonishing his friend, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."):

And thus we are led on to consider, how different are the character and effect of the Scripture notices of the structure of the physical world, from those which philosophers deliver. I am not deciding whether or not the one and the other are reconcileable; I merely say their respective effect is different. And when we have deduced what we deduce by our reason from the study of visible nature, and then read what we read in His inspired word, and find the two apparently discordant, this is the feeling I think we ought to have on our {209} minds;—not an impatience to do what is beyond our powers, to weigh evidence, sum up, balance, decide, and reconcile, to arbitrate between the two voices of God,—but a sense of the utter nothingness of worms such as we are; of our plain and absolute incapacity to contemplate things as they really are; a perception of our emptiness, before the great Vision of God; of our "comeliness being turned into corruption, and our retaining no strength;" a conviction, that what is put before us, in nature or in grace, though true in such a full sense that we dare not tamper with it, yet is but an intimation useful for particular purposes, useful for practice, useful in its department, "until the day-break and the shadows flee away," useful in such a way that both the one and the other representation may at once be used, as two languages, as two separate approximations towards the Awful Unknown Truth, such as will not mislead us in their respective provinces. And thus while we use the language of science, without jealousy, for scientific purposes, we may confine it to these; and repel and reprove its upholders, should they attempt to exalt it and to "stretch it beyond its measure." In its own limited round it has its use, nay, may be made to fill a higher ministry, and stand as a proselyte under the shadow of the temple; but it must not dare profane the inner courts, in which the ladder of Angels is fixed for ever, reaching even to the Throne of God, and "Jesus standing on the right hand of God."

Secondly, Newman notes that we need to see the Ascension of Jesus as one part of the whole of the Gospel Revelation, one just as mysterious as the whole. Because Jesus, having redeemed us by His Passion and Resurrection, after His Ascension, intercedes for us with the Father in Heaven:

With the same view, let me observe upon the doctrine which accompanies the fact of the Ascension. Christ, we are told, has gone up on high "to present Himself before the face of God for us." He has "entered by His own blood once for all into the Holy Place, having effected eternal redemption." "He ever liveth to make intercession for those who come unto God by Him; He hath a priesthood which will not pass from Him." "We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a Minister of the Sanctuary, and of the true Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." [Heb. ix. 12, 24, 25; vii. 24, 25; viii. 1, 2.] . . . 

Newman helps us imagine the sight of Jesus interceding for us in Heaven, up to a point, because again: it is beyond us to know everything about it and at the same time it is true and we rely upon it being true:

Shall we therefore explain away its language as merely figurative, which (as the word is now commonly understood) is next to saying it has no meaning at all? Far from it. Clouds and darkness are round about Him. We are not given to see into the secret shrine in which God dwells. Before Him stand the Seraphim, veiling their faces. Christ is within the veil. We must not search curiously what is His present office, what is meant by His pleading His sacrifice, and by His perpetual intercession for us. And, since we do not know, we will studiously keep to the figure given us in Scripture: we will not attempt to interpret it, or change the wording of it, being wise above what is written. We will not neglect it, because we do not understand it. We will hold it as a Mystery, or (what was anciently called) a Truth Sacramental; that is, a high invisible grace lodged in an outward form, a precious possession to be piously and thankfully guarded for the sake of the heavenly reality contained in it. Thus much we see in it, the pledge of a doctrine which reason cannot understand, viz. of the influence {212} of the prayer of faith upon the Divine counsels. The Intercessor directs or stays the hand of the Unchangeable and Sovereign Governor of the World; being at once the meritorious cause and the earnest of the intercessory power of His brethren. "Christ rose again for our justification," "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," are both infinite mercies, and deep mysteries.

Finally, Newman deals with the question of why Jesus had to leave His Church on earth so the Holy Spirit could come to inspire us:

Now, proud and curious reason might seek to know why He could not "pray the Father," without going to Him; why He must depart in order to send the Spirit. But faith, without asking for one ray of light more than is given, muses over the wonderful system of Providence, as seen {213} in this world, which is ever connecting events, between which man sees no necessary bond. The whole system of what is called cause and effect, is one of mystery; and this instance, if it may be called one, supplies abundant matter of praise and adoration to a pious mind. It suggests to us, equally with the topics which have already come before us, how very much our knowledge of God's ways is but on the surface. What are those deep hidden reasons why Christ went and the Spirit came? Marvellous and glorious, beyond our understanding! Let us worship in silence; meanwhile, let us jealously maintain this, and every other portion of our Creed, lest, by dropping jot or tittle, we suffer the truths concealed therein to escape from us.

Moreover, this departure of Christ, and coming of the Holy Ghost, leads our minds with great comfort to the thought of many lower dispensations of Providence towards us. He, who, according to His inscrutable will, sent first His Co-equal Son, and then His Eternal Spirit, acts with deep counsel, which we may surely trust, when He sends from place to place those earthly instruments which carry on His purposes. . . .

Newman offers this beautiful insight about God's Providence and our beloved dead:

This is a thought which is particularly soothing as regards the loss of friends; or of especially gifted men, who seem in their day the earthly support of the Church. For what we know, their removal hence is as necessary for the furtherance of the very objects we have at heart, as was the departure of our Saviour.

Doubtless, "it is expedient" they should be taken away; otherwise some great mercy will not come to us. They are taken away perchance to other duties in {214} God's service, equally ministrative to the salvation of the elect, as earthly service. Christ went to intercede with the Father: we do not know, we may not boldly speculate,—yet, it may be, that Saints departed intercede, unknown to us, for the victory of the Truth upon earth; and their prayers above may be as really indispensable conditions of that victory, as the labours of those who remain among us. They are taken away for some purpose surely: their gifts are not lost to us; their soaring minds, the fire of their contemplations, the sanctity of their desires, the vigour of their faith, the sweetness and gentleness of their affections, were not given without an object. . . . Let us not forget that, though the prophecies of this sacred book may be still sealed from us, yet the doctrines and precepts are not; and that we lose much both in the way of comfort and instruction, if we do not use it for the purposes of faith and obedience. 

By looking at the mystery of the Ascension of Jesus through the lens of the loss we feel of family, friends, and acquaintances who were so important to us, Newman is demonstrating how effective this mystery is in our lives. This makes it real and personal. We think of both Christ's Ascension and the deaths of family and friends in a different way: God intends both for our good in ways we haven't dared considered before.

Newman concludes by applying the words of Jesus to Saint Thomas the Apostle when he saw and believed to us:

"Blessed," surely thrice blessed, "are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!" We will not wish for sight; we will enjoy our privilege; we will triumph in the leave given us to go forward, "not knowing whither we go," knowing that "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." [1 John v. 4.] It is enough that our Redeemer liveth; that He has been on earth and will come again. On Him we venture our all; we can bear thankfully to put ourselves into His hands, our interests present and eternal, and the interests of all we love.  . . .

Newman did not "wish for sight" in his famous poem, "The Pillar of the Cloud": "I do not ask to see/The distant scene; one step enough for me. . . . I loved to choose and see my path; but now/Lead Thou me on!"

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Jesus' ascension to Heaven depicted by John Singleton Copley in Ascension (1775)

Image Credit (Public Domain): The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio (c. 1602)

Preview: An Easter Octave Sermon: "Saving Knowledge"

On Monday, May 6, which is the Monday of Bright Week for our Orthodox brothers and sisters as they celebrated the three holiest days of Holy Week and Easter Sunday from May 2 through 5, we'll continue our series on the Son Rise Morning Show with another of St. John Henry Newman's Easter Season Sermons from his Anglican years. He preached--according to the footnote in the second volume of his Parochial and Plain Sermons--"Saving Knowledge" on the Monday of Easter Week. The text he chose for this sermon is "Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." 1 John 2:3

So 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 and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

{151} [Note] TO know God and Christ, in Scripture language, seems to mean to live under the conviction of His presence, who is to our bodily eyes unseen. It is, in fact, to have faith, according to St. Paul's account of faith, as the substance and evidence of what is invisible. It is faith, but not faith such as a Heathen might have, but Gospel faith; for only in the Gospel has God so revealed Himself, as to allow of that kind of faith which may be called, in a special manner, knowledge. The faith of Heathens was blind; it was more or less a moving forward in the darkness, with hand and foot;—therefore the Apostle says, "if haply they might feel after Him." [Acts xvii. 27.] But the Gospel is a manifestation, and therefore addressed to the eyes of our mind. Faith is {152} the same principle as before, but with the opportunity of acting through a more certain and satisfactory sense. We recognise objects by the eye at once; but not by the touch. We know them when we see them, but scarcely till then. Hence it is, that the New Testament says so much on the subject of spiritual knowledge. For instance, St. Paul prays that the Ephesians may receive "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened;" and he says, that the Colossians had "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him." St. Peter, in like manner, addresses his brethren with the salutation of "Grace and peace, through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord;" according to the declaration of our Lord Himself, "This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." [Eph. i. 17, 18. Col. iii. 10. 2 Pet. i. 2. John xviii. 3.] 

Newman then goes to to explain how we have received this knowledge, handed down to us:

It is plain what is the object of spiritual sight which is vouchsafed us in the Gospel,—"God manifest in the Flesh." He who was before unseen has shown Himself in Christ; not merely displayed His glory, as (for instance) in what is called a providence, or visitation, or in miracles, or in the actions and character of inspired men, but really He Himself has come upon earth, and has been seen of men in human form. In the same {153} kind of sense, in which we should say we saw a servant of His, Apostle or Prophet, though we could not see his soul, so man has seen the Invisible God; and we have the history of His sojourn among His creatures in the Gospels.

And then, he turns to the practical effects of the fact that we have this knowledge and what it means to us:

To know God is life eternal, and to believe in the Gospel manifestation of Him is to know Him; but how are we to "know that we know Him?" How are we to be sure that we are not mistaking some dream of our own for the true and clear Vision? How can we tell we are not like gazers upon a distant prospect through a misty atmosphere, who mistake one object for another? The text answers us clearly and intelligibly . . . St. John says, "Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." Obedience is the test of Faith.

Thus the whole duty and work of a Christian is made up of these two parts, Faith and Obedience; "looking unto Jesus," the Divine Object as well as Author of our faith, and acting according to His will. Not as if a certain frame of mind, certain notions, affections, feelings, and tempers, were not a necessary condition of a saving state; but, so it is, the Apostle does not insist upon it, as if it were sure to follow, if our hearts do but grow into these two chief objects, the view of God in Christ and the diligent aim to obey Him in our conduct. {154}

Newman is concerned that we try either to ignore or to choose between these two parts of our duty:

I conceive that we are in danger, in this day, of insisting on neither of these as we ought; regarding all true and careful consideration of the Object of faith, as barren orthodoxy, technical subtlety, and the like, and all due earnestness about good works as a mere cold and formal morality; and, instead, making religion, or rather (for this is the point) making the test of our being religious, to consist in our having what is called a spiritual state of heart, to the comparative neglect of the Object from which it must arise, and the works in which it should issue. At this season, when we are especially engaged in considering the full triumph and manifestation of our Lord and Saviour, when He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead," it may be appropriate to make some remarks on an error which goes far to deprive us of the benefit of His condescension.

There's a beautiful line in the next paragraph in which Newman speaks of the Gospels as "our principal treasures" and then highlights St. John the Evangelist as also being a Prophet because he both reports and comments of "the Ministry of his Lord", who is "the chief Prophet of the Church" as His Apostles "explain His words and actions":

The like service is ministered to Him by the Creeds and doctrinal expositions of the early Church, which we retain in our Services. They speak of no ideal being, such as the imagination alone contemplates, but of the very Son of God, whose life is recorded in the Gospels. Thus every part of the Dispensation tends to the manifestation of Him who is its centre.

Thus, Newman reminds us, we've been given "a short rule":

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments." [link to Thomas Tallis's great English anthem!] "He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." "If ye then be risen {156} with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." [John xiv. 15. 1 John ii. 6. Col. iii. 1.] This is all that is put upon us, difficult indeed to perform, but easy to understand; all that is put upon us,—and for this plain reason, because Christ has done everything else. He has freely chosen us, died for us, regenerated us, and now ever liveth for us; what remains? Simply that we should do as He has done to us, showing forth His glory by good works. Thus a correct (or as we commonly call it), an orthodox faith and an obedient life, is the whole duty of man. 

Not just the Gospels and the Epistles exhort us to follow this "short rule", but the Tradition and history of the Church:

And so, most surely, it has ever been accounted. Look into the records of the early Church, or into the writings of our own revered bishops and teachers, and see whether this is not the sum total of religion, according to the symbols of it in which children are catechized, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments.

Then he enters into discussion --which we will certainly not have time for Monday morning--of objections to this simple rule. At the end of that give and take debate within the sermon, he concludes with an example for us to imagine as a model:

Suppose a religious man, for instance, in the society of strangers; he takes things as they come, discourses naturally, gives his opinion soberly, and does good according to each opportunity of good. His heart is in his work, and his thoughts rest without effort on his God and Saviour. This is the way of a Christian; he leaves it to the ill-instructed to endeavour after a (so-called) spiritual frame of mind amid the bustle of life, which has no existence except in attempt and profession. True spiritual-mindedness is unseen by man, like the soul itself, of which it is a quality; and as the soul is known by its operations, so it is known by its fruits. . . .

Then Newman offers the opposite example, the one to avoid:

To conclude. The essence of Faith is to look out of ourselves; now, consider what manner of a believer he is who imprisons himself in his own thoughts, and rests on the workings of his own mind, and thinks of {162} his Saviour as an idea of his imagination, instead of putting self aside, and living upon Him who speaks in the Gospels.

So much then, by way of suggestion [!], upon the view of Religious Faith, which has ever been received in the Church Catholic, and which, doubtless, is saving. . . .

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Saint John the Evangelist in meditation by Simone Cantarini (1612–1648), Bologna

Preview: Another Newman Easter Season Sermon, "The Eucharistic Presence"

On Monday, April 29, the penultimate day of the month, we'll continue our Newman Easter Sermon series on the Son Rise Morning Show with "The Eucharistic Presence" sermon 11 in volume 6 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons ("This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." John 6:50.) 

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 29. Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later (and sometimes the show does repeat these segments later in the week during the first national hour).

Saint John Henry Newman, then an Anglican minister, preached this sermon on May 13, 1838, according to the chronology "given at the end of Longmans' Sermons on Subjects of the Day (pp. 411-424)". It is definitely an Anglican sermon as Newman is careful to distinguish between the Eucharistic doctrines of the Church of England and what he calls "one very large portion of Christendom" (the Catholic Church)--but more about that later!

In this Season of Easter, when those who entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, receiving the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion) and Second Graders have received their First Holy Communion, this seems an appropriate Newman Sermon to consider, even though he did not believe at that time what those new Catholics and Second Graders do about Holy Communion.

He begins with calling the Lenten and Easter Seasons the "Sacramental Season" and particularly the season in which Anglicans receive Holy Communion, according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer:

THE quarter of the year from Ash-Wednesday to Trinity Sunday may fittingly be called the Sacramental Season, as the Season preceding it is the Season of grace; and as we are specially called in the Christmas Season to sincerity of purpose, so now we are called to faith. God does good to those who are good and true of heart; and He reveals His mysteries to the believing. The earnest heart is the good ground in which faith takes root, and the truths of the Gospel are like the dew, the sunshine, and the soft rain, which make that heavenly seed to grow.

And in this sermon Newman does refer to Holy Communion as an Anglican sacrament:

The text speaks of the greatest and highest of all the Sacramental mysteries, which faith has been vouchsafed, that of Holy Communion. Christ, who died and rose again for us, is in it spiritually present, in the fulness of His death and of His resurrection. We call His presence in this Holy Sacrament a {137} spiritual presence, not as if "spiritual" were but a name or mode of speech, and He were really absent, but by way of expressing that He who is present there can neither be seen nor heard; that He cannot be approached or ascertained by any of the senses; that He is not present in place, that He is not present carnally, though He is really present. And how this is, of course is a mystery. All that we know or need know is that He is given to us, and that in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Just a little background, via this article from Adoremus by Father Michael Ewe Lang:

The early Tractarians (the members of the Oxford Movement were known for the publication of their Tracts for the Times) advocated a full application of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, especially the daily services of Matins and Evensong, which had fallen out of use, and a more frequent celebration of Communion. . . . On June 30, 1834, Newman began with the daily service of Matins in St. Mary the Virgin, and from 1836 he ensured that Evensong was celebrated every day in his newly built church in Littlemore. After some consideration, Newman instituted an early Sunday morning Communion service in the University church at Easter 1837.[4]

Newman was careful to follow the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer to the letter, since any alteration of the established customs would have added fuel to the controversy about the Oxford Movement, which was seen as “Romanizing.” . . .

Also, please note that according to the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer, those who wished to receive Holy Communion at the Sunday service notified the Curate of the parish in advance so that there was time to determine if there was any reason the communicant should NOT present herself to receive the Sacrament to avoid "grave and immediate scandal"!

After his introduction of the text for his sermon, Newman addresses how the Gospel of St. John, in chapter 6 and elsewhere, supplements the narratives of the Lord's Supper and other Sacraments in the Synoptic Gospels with a doctrinal explanation:

Now, with reference to the text and the chapter from which it is taken, I begin by observing, what at first sight one would think no one could doubt, that this chapter of St. John does treat of the Lord's Supper, and is, in fact, a comment upon the account of it, given by the other three Evangelists. We know it is St. John's way to supply what his brethren omit, and that especially in matters of doctrine; and in like manner to omit what they record. Hence, while all three give an account of the institution of Holy Communion at the last Supper, St. John omits it; and, because they omit to enlarge upon the great gift contained in it, he enters upon it. . . .

So in what we now usually call "the Bread of Life discourse", Newman tells his listeners/readers that

The bearing, then, of our Lord's sacred words would seem to be as follows, if one may venture to investigate it. At Capernaum, in the chapter now before us, He solemnly declares to His Apostles that none shall live for ever, but such as eat and drink His flesh and blood; and then afterwards. just before He was crucified, as related in the other three Gospels, He points out to them the way in which this mystery of grace was to be fulfilled in them. He assigns the consecrated Bread as that Body of which He had spoken, and the consecrated Wine as His Blood; and in partaking of the Bread and the Cup, they were partakers of His Body and Blood. . . .

When, then, Christ used the words of the text and of {140} other parts of the chapter containing it, He was describing prospectively that gift, which, in due season, the consecrated bread and wine were to convey to His Church for ever. Speaking with reference to what was to be, He says, "I am that Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

And then Newman goes on to explicate the connections among the Manna of the Holy Testament, the miracle of loaves and fishes Jesus had just performed before the crowds followed Him to get more, the meaning of the words in the Discourse, the Institution of the Eucharist, and even the words and rubrics of the Anglican Prayer of Consecration. 

His effort throughout is to demonstrate that Jesus was not speaking figuratively or metaphorically about His Body and His Blood in chapter six of the Gospel of John but that the Institution of the Holy Eucharist the night before He died described in the Synoptic Gospels was the fulfillment of that earlier message: He gave the Church the means of consecrating and receiving His Body and His Blood.

There's just too much detail for us to consider in the time we have at the end of the hour to review it all! You may certainly read it all here.

Of course, Newman's conclusion is important, since it prescribes the congregation's response to these mysteries. Note especially the connection Newman makes between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Sacrament of Holy Communion:

Such reflections as the foregoing lead us to this conclusion,—to understand that it is our duty to make much of Christ's miracles of love; and instead of denying or feeling cold towards them, to desire to possess our hearts with them. . . . Let us feel interest and awful expectation at the news of them; let us put ourselves in the way of them; let us wait upon God day by day for the treasures of grace, which are hid in Christ, which are great beyond words or thought.

Above all, let us pray Him to draw us to Him, and to give us faith. When we feel that His mysteries are too severe for us, and occasion us to doubt, let us earnestly wait on Him for the gift of humility and love. Those who love and who are humble will apprehend them;—carnal minds do not seek them, and proud minds are offended at them;—but while love desires them, humility sustains them. Let us pray Him then to give us such a real and living insight into the blessed doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God, of His birth of a Virgin, His atoning death, and resurrection, that we may desire that the Holy Communion may be the effectual type of that gracious Economy. No one realizes the Mystery of the Incarnation but must feel disposed towards that of Holy Communion. Let us pray Him to give us an earnest longing after Him—a thirst for His presence—an anxiety to find Him—a joy on hearing that He is to be found, even now, under the veil of sensible things,—and a good hope that we shall find Him there. Blessed indeed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. They have their reward in believing; they enjoy the contemplation of a mysterious blessing, which does not even enter into the thoughts {152} of other men; and while they are more blessed than others, in the gift vouchsafed to them, they have the additional privilege of knowing that they are vouchsafed it.

Now, about his comments in this sermon re: the [Roman] Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is what he says in 1838:

Nothing can show more clearly how high the blessing is, than to observe that the Church's tendency has been, not to detract from its marvellousness, but to increase it. The Church has never thought little of the gift; so far from it, we know that one very large portion of Christendom holds more than we hold. That belief, which goes beyond ours, shows how great the gift is really. I allude to the doctrine of what is called Transubstantiation, which we do not admit; or that the bread and wine cease to be, and that Christ's sacred Body and Blood are directly seen, touched, and handled, under the appearances of Bread and Wine. This our Church considers there is no ground for saying, and our Lord's own words contain marvel enough, even without adding any thing to them by way of explanation. Let us, then, now consider them in themselves, apart from additions which came afterwards.

But if you turn to his Apologia pro Vita Sua from 1864, you'll read in the last chapter, "The Position of my Mind since 1845", Newman writes of the doctrine of Transubstantiation:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe? Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." But for myself, I cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "Why should it not be? What's to hinder it? 

He compares faithful acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation to faithful acceptance of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons:

 And, in like manner, of that majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one; but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of the Incommunicable God.

Please note that the date at the bottom of this chapter is on the Feast of Corpus Christi, May 26, 1864.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Source (Public Domain): 16th-century painting of the Lord's/Last Supper by Juan de Juanes

Image Source (Public Domain): The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael 1509–1510) depicts theologians debating Transubstantiation, including four Doctors of the Church, with Pope Gregory I and Jerome seated to the left of the altar and Augustine and Ambrose to the right, Pope Julius II, Pope Sixtus IV, Savonarola and Dante Alighieri.

Preview: "Witnesses of the Resurrection" on the Son Rise Morning Show

Continuing our Easter Season series on the Son Rise Morning Show, we'll discuss another Parochial and Plain Sermon by Saint John Henry Newman in which he answers the same question we looked at last week ("WHY did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead?") or a variation thereof: "Why did not our Saviour show Himself after His resurrection to all the people? why only to witnesses chosen before of God?" and provides another answer.

So I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, April 22. 

Please listen live here and/or catch the podcast later, as we highlight some insights from "Witnesses of the Resurrection" ("Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." Acts 10:40-41)

To outline the highlights of Newman's argument in this sermon:

1. Jesus knew what He was doing after the Resurrection when He limited His Resurrection appearances to His followers, not appearing in Glory to the crowds or the Pharisees and those who had orchestrated His Crucifixion. They might have been amazed by His re-appearance, but it would not have persuaded them to believe and follow.

2. Jesus prepared those whom He had chosen to witness to His Passion and Resurrection so they'd be ready to spread the Gospel. Their witness, even to martyrdom, "spread the knowledge of Christ's resurrection over the idolatrous world" in a way that no "public exhibition of His resurrection" would have achieved, deeply and lastingly.

3. We need to recognize the wisdom of these events and apply them to our own response to His Resurrection: like the few He instructed before His Ascension, we need to hand on the Faith by our witness and example. We should never grow despondent if we perceive "the prevalence of error" around us, as the history of the Church demonstrates: "It is the consolation of the despised Truth, that its works endure. Its words {292} are few, but they live."

There's good reasons for Newman to explore this topic further, because this a mystery: not one to be solved but one to meditate upon. Before he poses the question, Newman suggests that we might have some mistaken ideas about the Resurrection of Our Lord:

IT might have been expected, that, on our Saviour's rising again from the dead, He would have shown Himself to very great numbers of people, and especially to those who crucified Him; whereas we know from the history, that, far from this being the case, He showed Himself only to chosen witnesses, chiefly His immediate followers; and St. Peter avows this in the text. This seems at first sight strange. We are apt to fancy the resurrection of Christ as some striking visible display of His glory, such as God vouchsafed from time to time to the Israelites in Moses' day; and considering it in the light of a public triumph, we are led to imagine the confusion and terror which would have overwhelmed His murderers, had He presented Himself alive before them. Now, thus to reason, is to conceive Christ's kingdom of this world, which it is not; and to suppose that then Christ came to judge the world, whereas that judgment will not be till the last day, when in very deed those wicked men shall "look on Him whom they have pierced."

But even without insisting upon the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, which seems to be the direct reason why Christ did not show Himself to all the Jews after His resurrection, other distinct reasons may be given, instructive too. And one of these I will now set before you.

As St. Thomas Aquinas states in the Third Part of the Summa Theologicae, (paraphrasing of course): if God did it this way, it must be the way it should have been done! Newman concurs: 

After His resurrection, He said to His disciples, "Go, convert all nations:" [Matthew 28:19] this was His especial charge. If, then, there are grounds for thinking that, by showing Himself to a few rather than to many, He was more surely advancing this great object, the propagation of the Gospel, this is a sufficient reason for our Lord's having so ordained; and let us thankfully receive His dispensation, as He has given it.

Newman supports this argument by saying that if we think Jesus appearing to the crowds, to the Sanhedrin, and the Pharisees would have persuaded them He was the Savior promised by God and predicted by the prophets, we've forgotten their reactions to the miracles and signs He worked during His public ministry:

His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and, doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before. They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last? . . . In truth, this is the way of the mass of mankind in all ages, to be influenced by sudden fears, sudden contrition, sudden earnestness, sudden resolves, which disappear as suddenly. Nothing is done effectually through untrained human nature; and such is ever the condition of the multitude. Unstable as water, it cannot excel. One day it cried Hosanna; the next, Crucify Him. And, had our Lord appeared to them after they had crucified Him, of course they would have shouted Hosanna once more; and when He had ascended out of sight, then again they would have persecuted His followers. . . .

Surely so it would have been; the chief priests would not have been moved at all; and the populace, however they had been moved at the time, would not have been lastingly moved, not practically moved, not so moved as to proclaim to the world what they had heard and seen, as to preach the Gospel. This is the point to be kept in view: and consider that the very reason why Christ showed Himself at all was in order to raise up witnesses {286} to His resurrection, ministers of His word, founders of His Church; and how in the nature of things could a populace ever become such?

Newman then concentrates our attention on what Jesus did after His Resurrection and its effects on the world:

It would seem, then, that our Lord gave His attention to a few, because, if the few be gained, the many will follow. To these few He showed Himself again and again. These He restored, comforted, warned, inspired. He formed them unto Himself, that they might show forth His praise. This His gracious procedure is opened to us in the first words of the Book of the Acts. "To the Apostles whom He had chosen He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." . . .

I have already suggested, what is too obvious almost to insist upon, that in making a select few the ministers of His mercy to mankind at large, our Lord was but acting according to the general course of His providence. It is plain every great change is effected by the few, not by the many; by the resolute, undaunted, {288} zealous few. . . . One or two men, of small outward pretensions, but with their hearts in their work, these do great things. These are prepared, not by sudden excitement, or by vague general belief in the truth of their cause, but by deeply impressed, often repeated instruction; and since it stands to reason that it is easier to teach a few than a great number, it is plain such men always will be few. Such as these spread the knowledge of Christ's resurrection over the idolatrous world. Well they answered the teaching of their Lord and Master. Their success sufficiently approves to us His wisdom in showing Himself to them, not to all the people.

Then, as ever, Newman applies these lessons to us, emphasizing the tradition of the few handing on to the few, who become many:

Now, let us observe how much matter, both for warning and comfort, is supplied by this view. We learn from the picture of the infant Church what that Church has been ever since, that is, as far as man can understand it. Many are called, few are chosen. . . .

We, too, though we are not witnesses of Christ's actual resurrection, are so spiritually. By a heart awake from the dead, and by affections set on heaven, we can as truly and without figure witness that Christ liveth, as they did. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Truth bears witness by itself to its Divine Author. He who obeys God conscientiously, and lives holily, forces all about him to {293} believe and tremble before the unseen power of Christ. To the world indeed at large he witnesses not; for few can see him near enough to be moved by his manner of living. But to his neighbours he manifests the Truth in proportion to their knowledge of him; and some of them, through God's blessing, catch the holy flame, cherish it, and in their turn transmit it. And thus in a dark world Truth still makes way in spite of the darkness, passing from hand to hand.

And he concludes with the witness of the martyrs, citing Saint Ignatius of Antioch:

Let these be our thoughts whenever the prevalence of error leads us to despond. When St. Peter's disciple, Ignatius, was brought before the Roman emperor, he called himself Theophorus; and when the emperor asked the feeble old man why he so called himself, Ignatius said it was because he carried Christ in his breast. He witnessed there was but One God, who made heaven, earth, and sea, and all that is in them, and One Lord Jesus Christ, His Only-begotten Son, "whose kingdom {294} (he added) be my portion!" The emperor asked, "His kingdom, say you, who was crucified under Pilate?" "His (answered the Saint) who crucified my sin in me, and who has put all the fraud and malice of Satan under the feet of those who carry Him in their hearts: as it is written, 'I dwell in them and walk in them.'"

Ignatius was one against many, as St. Peter had been before him; and was put to death as the Apostle had been;—but he handed on the Truth, in his day. At length we have received it. Weak though we be, and solitary, God forbid we should not in our turn hand it on; glorifying Him by our lives, and in all our words and works witnessing Christ's passion, death, and resurrection!

As usual, Newman has designed an argument that leads his audience into thoughtful consideration of the Scriptures and, indeed, Church Tradition, as Jesus taught the Apostles more about all He had taught them before His Passion and Resurrection and prepared them for spreading the Gospel. Newman involves us in his exploration of God's Providence in not appearing to the many but to the few, so he may convince us to be among those few today who hand on and witness to the faith of the Early Church, the Church of the Apostles and their successors!

Saint Peter the Apostle, pray for us!

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit: (Public Domain) James Tissot: Meal of Our Lord and the Apostles

Image Credit: (Public Domain) James Tissot: Feed My Lambs

Image Credit: (Public Domain) An icon of Ignatius of Antioch from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

Preview: "Christian Reverence" on the Son Rise Morning Show

I'll start a new series with the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, April 15 (Tax Day!) with one of Saint John Henry Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Christian Reverence" ("Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling." Psalm 2:11.)

I'll be on at my usual time, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Listen live here or catch the podcast later.

Newman begins this sermon with a question:

WHY did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead? 

And then provides the answer:

Because He was a King . . . Kings do not court the multitude, or show themselves as a spectacle at the will of others. They are the rulers of their people, and have their state as such, and are reverently waited on by their great men: and when they show themselves, they do so out of their condescension. They act by means of their servants, and must be sought by those who would gain favours from them.

Newman then continues to show that Jesus conducted Himself in the same way before His Passion and Resurrection: 

. . . even before He entered into His glory, Christ spoke and acted as a King. . . . When He taught, warned, pitied, prayed for, His ignorant hearers, He never allowed them to relax their reverence or to overlook His condescension. Nay, He did not allow them to praise Him aloud, and publish His acts of grace; as if what is called popularity would be a dishonour to His holy name, and the applause of men would imply their right to censure. The world's praise is akin to contempt. Our Lord delights in the tribute of the secret heart. Such was His conduct in the days of His flesh. Does it not interpret His dealings with us after His resurrection? He who was so reserved in His communications of Himself, even when He came to minister, much more would withdraw Himself from the eyes of men when He was exalted over all things.

As he notes, no humans saw Jesus rise from the tomb: the Angels did, but not even the soldiers set to guard the tomb, who were asleep. The Risen Christ chooses to whom and when He will appear, and Newman catalogs those appearances:

First of all, He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden itself where He had been buried; then to the other women who ministered unto Him; then to the two disciples travelling to Emmaus; then to all the Apostles separately; besides, to Peter and to James; and to Thomas in the presence of them all. Yet not even these, His friends, had free access to Him. He said to Mary, "Touch Me not." He came and left them according to His own pleasure. When they saw Him, they felt an awe which they had not felt during His ministry. While they doubted if it were He, "None of them," St. John says, "durst ask Him, Who art Thou? believing that it was the Lord." [John xxi. 12.] However, as kings have their days of state, on which they show themselves publicly to their subjects, so our Lord appointed a meeting of His disciples, when they might see Him. He had determined this even before His crucifixion; and the Angels reminded them of it. "He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." [Mark xvi. 7.] The place of meeting was a mountain; the same (it is supposed) as that on which He had been transfigured; and the number who saw Him there was five hundred at once, if we join St. Paul's account to that in the Gospels. At length, after forty days, He was taken from them; He ascended up, "and a cloud received Him out of their sight."

Then Newman turns to his congregation and applies these reactions of the Apostles to them (us):

Are we to feel less humble veneration for Him now, than His Apostles then? Though He is our Savior, and has removed all slavish fear of death and judgment, are we, therefore, to make light of the prospect before us, as if we were sure of that reward which He bids us struggle for? Assuredly, we are still to "serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with reverence,"—to "kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and so we perish from the right way, if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little." In a Christian's course, fear and love must go together. And this is the lesson to be deduced from our Saviour's withdrawing from the world after His resurrection. He showed His love for men by dying for them, and rising again. He maintained His honour and great glory by retiring from them when His merciful purpose was attained, that they might seek Him if they would find Him. He ascended to His Father out of our sight. Sinners would be ill company for the exalted King of Saints. When we have been duly prepared to see Him, we shall be given to approach Him.

In heaven, love will absorb fear; but in this world, fear and love must go together. No one can love God aright without fearing Him; though many fear Him, and yet do not love Him. . . .

Now how does this apply to us here assembled? Are we in danger of speaking or thinking of Christ irreverently?

Even if we are not, Newman warns us not to even to seem to speak or think of Christ without that fear and love of reverence, lest we "allow ourselves to appear profane" and then actually become irreverent "while we are pretending to be so" out of fear of appearing weak to others. (Men do not begin by intending to dishonour God; but they are afraid of the ridicule of others: they are ashamed of appearing religious; and thus are led to pretend that they are worse than they really are. They say things which they do not mean; and, by a miserable weakness, allow actions and habits to be imputed to them which they dare not really indulge in. Hence, they affect a liberty of speech which only befits the companions of evil spirits.)

He warns that such careless language will affect our hearts and our thoughts eventually, so we must not start down that path to becoming "cold, indifferent, [and] profane".

And what do we do if we encounter those, who may be baptized Christian, who did start down that path and now  "are in heart infidels" and "may attempt to disguise their own unbelief under pretence of objecting to one or other of the doctrines or ordinances of religion" and finally "should a time of temptation come, when it would be safe to show themselves as they really are, they will (almost unawares) throw off their profession of Christianity, and join themselves to the scoffing world"?

Newman warns us to tread lightly, since we are sinners too:

We must not take advantage (so to say) of His goodness; or misuse the powers committed to us. Never must we solicitously press the truth upon those who do not profit by what they already possess. It dishonours Christ, while it does the scorner harm, not good. It is casting pearls before swine. We must wait for all opportunities of being useful to men, but beware of attempting too much at once. We must impart the Scripture doctrines, in measure and season, as they can bear them; not being eager to recount them all, rather, hiding them from the world. Seldom must we engage in controversy or dispute; for it lowers the sacred truths to make them a subject for ordinary debate. Common propriety suggests rules like these at once. Who would speak freely about some revered friend in the presence of those who did not value him? or who would think he could with a few words overcome their indifference towards him? or who would hastily dispute about him when his hearers had no desire to be made love him?

Rather, shunning all intemperate words, let us show our light before men by our works. Here we must be safe. In doing justice, showing mercy, speaking the truth, resisting sin, obeying the Church,—in thus glorifying God, there can be no irreverence. And, above all, let us look at home, check all bad thoughts, presumptuous imaginings, vain desires, discontented murmurings, self-complacent reflections, and so in our hearts ever honour Him in secret, whom we reverence by open profession.

May God guide us in a dangerous world; and deliver us from evil. And may He rouse to serious thought, by the power of His Spirit, all who are living in profaneness or unconcern!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!