My "Newman Week"

Last week was really a Newman week for me--but one event had to be postponed because of icy and snowy weather. It seems like our weeks here in Wichita have a certain pattern: mild weekends, lovely Mondays and Tuesdays, and then stormy weather coming Wednesday overnight into Thursday. Cancellations and school closings Thursday, warm up Friday, and then warmer weekends! At least, it's happened three times so far this year.

I'd been preparing for two presentations last week at Newman University during their Heritage Month which honors both Saint Maria de Mattias, the founder of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and Saint John Henry Newman, the university's patron since 1993 (first as Kansas Newman College and then as Newman University). Both saints were born in February (she on February 4, 1805; he on February 21, 1801.) I gave one of the presentations Wednesday, February 16 at Noon (see flyer above) but was warned that the second presentation I was scheduled to make, at the Beata Banquet for benefactors Thursday evening, might need to be postponed if the winter storm occurred as forecast. And it was! I certainly hope it will be rescheduled after spending so much time preparing for it!

I'd also been preparing for our monthly Lovers of Newman meeting at the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Colwich, Kansas, which I attended Sunday, February 20. We celebrated Saint John Henry Newman's birthday with a red velvet cake (appropriate for a Cardinal!) as we read and discussed one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Love the One Thing Needful".

And of course, I'd been reading and preparing for my segment on the Son Rise Morning Show yesterday (Monday) morning, discussing the third of Newman's pre-Lenten sermons, "Prejudice and Faith", which will be repeated Friday morning February 25, during the first EWTN hour (from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Central or 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Eastern). We'll continue that series throughout Lent, using the sermons included in The Tears of Christ: Meditations for Lent edited and complied by Christopher O. Blum of the Augustine Institute. We'll select one sermon, excerpted by Blum, each week from among the daily meditations and discuss it on Monday mornings at my usual time.

And finally, following a pattern of preparation I developed in college, I read Michael Ffinch's Newman: Towards the Second Spring before my presentations just as a review of Newman's life and times. I commented on that book last week too.

And today I plan to attend the High Tea at Newman University this afternoon. This event has been held to honor the Englishman Saint John Henry Newman since the mid-1980's as this 2019 story explains!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

2020: The 500th Anniversary of St. Peter ad Vincula

St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London is celebrating its 500th anniversary this year. More appropriately stated, it's celebrating the 500th anniversary of the rebuilding of St. Peter ad Vincula in 1520, because a chapel named for St. Peter in Chains had been near the Tower of London since Norman times. Henry III's changes to the Tower included attaching the chapel to the castle inside the walls. That chapel burned in 1512 and was rebuilt during Henry VIII's reign in 1519/1520 by Sir Richard Cholmondeley, whose effigy lies under the central arcade (he died in 1521). He was appointed the Lieutenant of the Tower in 1513; his name is really spelled Cholmeley (pronounced chumley) and he is a character in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard!! Although his effigy with his wife is so prominent in the chapel, they are not buried there, although many other people are!

This site summarizes those buried there:

The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula is best known as the burial place of some of the most famous prisoners of the Tower, which include three queens, namely Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the second and fifth wives of Henry VIII respectively and the tragic Lady Jane Grey, who reigned for nine days in 1553.

George Boleyn, brother of Anne Boleyn, accused of incest with her, was also buried in the chapel after his execution in 1536, as were Edmund Dudley and Sir Richard Empson, tax collectors for Henry VII. Thomas More and John Fisher, who incurred the wrath of Henry VIII and were subsequently executed, and later canonised as martyrs by the Roman Catholic Church, are also buried there, as is Henry VIII's minister, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, who was executed on Henry's orders in 1540. James Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II, led a rebellion against his uncle James II and was executed on 15 July 1685, on Tower Hill. He too is buried in the chapel. Monmouth's execution was hideously bungled, the executioner took five strokes at his neck and even then the head was not completely severed and had to be finished off with a knife.

Saint Philip Howard was buried there until his body was translated to Arundel Cathedral.

It's interesting to note that the first presentation is by the retired Bishop of London for the Church of England speaking about the Chapel and the Reformation. Subsequent posted events include discussions of Henry VIII and of Anne Boleyn.

Image Source and Credit