Image taken from Media Source McNamaras Blog
Cardinal Henry Newman spent his life in search the light of Truth.
Born in the City of London, 21 February, 1801, Henry was the eldest of six children. His religious training, was a modified form of Calvinism, which he received at his mother’s knees. Calvinism is where you believe you are predestined to heaven because you are already blessed with material riches. Henry Newman would read the bible as a kid. At fifteen he underwent a type of “conversion”, based on an idea of God as a ”notion”. He became ordained an Anglican priest in 1824, and was appointed curate of St. Clement’s, Oxford. It was here at Oxford, his religious views in which he had been brought up, began to disappoint. How do you preach convincingly about a ”notion God?”.
The first step towards truth: God as Person
Then began a formation period in his new priestly life; a search for the light of truth. In this new formative period, Newman derived new principles and his old Calvinist philosophy dropped away. At the age of 25, Newman said he had met God, not “as a notion, but as a person”.
The second step towards truth: The wonder of the Roman Catholic Church
Newman’s travelled by the Mediterranean sea to the coasts of North Africa, Italy, Western Greece, and Sicily (December, 1832-July, 1833). It was a romantic episode, with many new novelties. In Rome he met a Catholic called Wiseman at the English College. The eternal city, made a strong impression on him, for Newman found answers he longed for at the bosom of the Catholic church. The Catholic Church is universal and offers universal truth. Rev. Henry was to return to England with a new way of thinking and a mission.
During his return voyage from the Mediterranean he wrote the tender verses, “Lead, Kindly Light”, which became a very popular English hymn. Newman wrote the hymn amid the stormy seas. Returning to Oxford, he found he was increasingly far from Anglicanism, and storm clouds began to appear on the horizon of faith.
The third Step towards truth: Stoking up a debate
in 1833, Henry Newman enrolled in the Oxford movement, and began studying the Fathers of the Church. This movement was common to all denominations, and Rev. Henry Newman gathered around him a group of scholars who questioned themselves on important topics such as respect for the tradition of the first centuries. Newman began to publish material called the “Tracts for the Times”. They were a type of pamphlet, and controversy was provoked in edition ”Tract 90″ in 1841. In it, Newman explained his anglican position which he called the “Via Media“. The Anglican Church, he maintained, lay at an equal distance from Rome (Catholicism) and Geneva (Calvinism). The Anglican church he believed was Catholic in origin and doctrine. Tract 90 distinguished the Thirty-Nine Articles (against Rome), from the doctrines of Trent (for Rome). A furious protestant agitation broke out in consequence, Newman was denounced as a traitor at Oxford. He lost many long time friends for his Tract 90 publication.
Assenting with truth: The conversion to the Catholic faith
In 1843 the reverend Newman made a decision, and retracted in a local newspaper his formerly severe language towards Rome. He began to see the light of truth, and in September of the same year he resigned as an Anglican priest. Two years later he asked to be admitted to the Catholic Church. Then, after completing his theological studies in Rome, he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1847.
New fruits from the light of truth.
In 1850 Henry founded the Dublin University, and built a special half Byzantine half Roman church in Dublin. His Catholicity shone brightly in Ireland. Newman produced a new translation of the Bible into English. He also founded an Oratory in Oxford, dedicated to St Philip Neri, in whose Congregation he had been ordained a priest.
Truth is universal
We too, even if we are already Catholic, can endeavour to discover the light of truth emanating from the Catholic faith. God may prune us from our old ways of thinking to make us more fruitful with the rays of truth shining in our hearts. We ask Our Lady to be our light and guide to the fullness of truth, away from the storm and into the harbour of heavenly happiness.
In 1879, Pope Leo XIII created him a Cardinal. John Henry Newman died at the Birmingham Oratory on 11th August 1890. He was canonised in 2019, and his memory is celebrated on the 9th of October in Ireland for his Irish foundation of the Dublin University church on St. Stephen’s Green.
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