Conoscere Newman. Introduzione alle opere, a cura del Centro Internazionale degli Amici di Newman, Relazioni del Colloquio internazionale, 19-20 febbraio 2001, Urbaniana University Press, Roma 2002, 15 – 33.
THE ENDURING RELEVANCE OF NEWMAN’S VISION OF HOPE
Philip Boyce, O.C.D., Bishop of Raphoe (Ireland)
From a religious point of view the period in which our lives are now placed at the turn of a millennium is not the most buoyant. At least in Western Europe the truth of religion, with its daily practice and influence on behaviour, is under severe pressure. « The cause of truth, never dominant in the world, has its ebbs and flows, » Newman once wrote. « It is pleasant to live in a day when the tide is coming in »[1]. Hardly a time this when the tide is coming in for the Church, at least in the western zones of the world.
In a talk given on the occasion of the Annual Newman pilgrimage to Oxford and Littlemore on the 7th October, 2000, Father Jerome Bertram of the Oratory recalled Newman’s contention that the Church goes through a very profound crisis at the end of each millennium (or, as John Henry himself called it, the millenary), only to rise again, invigorated from the ashes of destruction[2]. A series of unworthy Popes and the interference of political powers left the Church devoid of freedom and moral authority a thousand years ago. But then came the Revival through new mendicant and other religious orders and through the theologians and Saints of the initial and the golden eras of Scholastic Philosophy and Theology.
What about our situation? The assault of infidelity, foreseen by Newman, has battled against the Church and Christian faith with the weapons of proud rationalism, subtle modernism and subjectivism, and with the alluring spell of scientific discoveries. But there are signs of resilience and new life. At least we can look to the documents of the Second Vatican Council; to a line of outstanding Pontiffs; Orders and New Forms of Consecrated Life; the laity
and women among them taking on a more active part in Church life, and the efforts towards Church Unity. Moreover, was there ever a time when we had such a number of excellent documents by the Magisterium on all aspects of our faith: – Lumen Gentium; Redemptoris Missio; Veritatis Splendor? – to mention but a few of them.
However, our interest at present is not to try to foretell what instruments will be used by Providence to defend the faith against the ever recurring attacks of evil and falsehood, but rather to look at the reasons for the hope that gave John Henry Newman such unfailing confidence even amid the encircling gloom. What elements in his vision of hope make it to be enduringly relevant?
Hope in Providence
First of all, let us examine the very virtue of hope itself. It is not to be mistaken for a superficial optimism that looks cheerfully on the bright side of things and ignores the real dangers and difficulties that threaten us. The Christian vision of hope, which was Newman’s, perceives what is harmful; it reads the signs of the times as they are and looks not naively on the struggle between good and evil in society and in the human heart. However, it also trusts in the assistance of a higher power, a Divine one, that guides the course of history according to providential designs.
Hope that is merely natural is a movement of the will towards something that we perceive as good, that is not yet ours completely but that is possible though difficult to attain. At a psychological level it contains a sense of dissatisfaction and incompleteness, because there is a tension towards something that is not yet fully possessed. What we hope for is not easy to attain, but the movement of the will, where hope resides, overcomes the uncertainties and assures us that what we long for is not unattainable.
Christian theological hope is a gift infused by God, a theological virtue that gives the human will the possibility to tend with assurance towards the greatest good of all, the beatific vision of God, and to all things we need in order to attain this salvation. This is ‘the better hope’ (Heb 7:19) about which
e New Testament speaks. The Apostle Paul calls «Christ Jesus, our hope» (1 Tim 1:1). Its object is not an illusion but a reality which God himself has destined for us: «There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom» (Lk 12:32). The fulfilment may be tested, it may be delayed, it may be hope against all hope (cf. Rom 4:18), but we shall not be disappointed. It does not let us down «because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us» (Rom 5:5). God who loves us has promised to save us. He who has given the promise is faithful to it (cf. Heb 10:23). He has the power to do so, while his merciful and just love gives us the certainty that He shall carry out his purposes of salvation.
When Newman speaks of hope he most often couples it with faith of which it is, in his understanding, the fulfilment: « To hope is not only to believe in God, but to believe and be certain that He loves us and means well to us; and therefore it is a great Christian grace. For faith without hope is not certain to bring us to Christ. The devils believe and tremble (Jas 2:19). They believe, but they do not come to Christ – because they do not hope, but despair. They despair of getting any good from Him »[3].
Those words are taken from one of his Catholic sermons, but hope was a subject he had regularly dealt with in his preaching. An early Sermon which he preached on various occasions during his Anglican period deals specifically with hope as a Christian attitude of mind and how it is formed by the liturgy and by Scripture. It is an indispensable attitude of Christian living: « Without hope religion cannot exist »[4]. Newman defines hope as the patient subdued tranquil cheerful thoughtful waiting for Christ. But this waiting, says Newman, is not like other waiting. It differs from the waiting of the world for worldly things and events. This waiting is first of all patient. This patient attitude or temper of mind enables the one who has hope to withstand the disquiet and agitation which the evil in the world tends to provoke. Hope is
patient because it clearly sees the worthlessness of all things of this world, of all worldly affairs, if viewed in themselves. Furthermore, Newman links his patience with the ability to endure suffering. This is not a resigned patience, but an active, lively patience.[5]
Hope, says Newman, is also subdued. The Christian’s hope is not « a passionate longing, an intemperate rash emotion ». The Christian has control over his emotions and his reactions. He has a holy reserve. He is able to go about his duties diligently. His waiting for Christ does not interfere with his living in the world, but rather enhances it and gives it meaning. Thinking of the Apostles after Christ’s Ascension, Newman writes in this regard: « The angels reproved that loitering rather than waiting habit of mind which cannot think of Christ without folding the hands in idleness, when they said ‘Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?’ We should go about our duties, and take measures for a future day, just as if we were certain of the morrow being ours. Hope does not disarrange the course of this world by any violence of word or action »[6].
Hope is, also, tranquil. The word tranquillity brings to mind a steadily and deeply flowing river which nothing can perturb. It continues on its course unstopped, but unhurried, powerful enough to take even great obstacles out of its way, but not raging and foaming. Such, too, is the nature of hope. It is imperturbable and calm, but unstoppable in its power. Hope is tranquil because it is anchored in Christ, who is unshakeable. The Christian’s heart is fixed on Him and can withstand the agitation and fever of this world.
For this same reason, hope is cheerful. Newman uses the analogy of a person in good health. The health in body brings with it good spirits. Healthy people are almost unconsciously happy. So it is, too, with those who have hope. « The secret deep in the heart unconsciously spreads its consolation over ordinary thoughts and feelings – so that, merriment which seems to arise from outward and passing circumstances, springs really from a source of which the Christian himself is not aware »[7].
The cheerfulness which hope gives distinguishes itself from worldly cheer precisely because it is enduring, and this because it has an enduring source. Christian cheerfulness is not based on mere feeling or sentiment or mood. It is a habit which rises above all emotion. Thus Christian cheerfulness is a virtue and a duty because it springs from hope.
Christian hope is watchful. The Christian always has his eyes fixed on Christ in hope. He is always looking out for Him. Thus Newman can exhort: « We are not simply to believe, but to watch; not simply to love, but to watch; not simply to obey, but to watch; to watch for what? for that great event, Christ’s coming »[8]. This watching is not only directed toward the final coming of Christ, as a sailor keeps look-out for land. It is a watching which is directed toward every movement of Christ, every « advent of Christ, in the ordinary and extraordinary events of life »[9].
Thus coupled with the watchfulness of Christian hope is its thoughtfulness. In this, Newman points out, we have the special example of the Blessed Virgin Mary who « kept all these things and pondered them in her heart » (Lk 2:19). « She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells upon it; not enough to possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she develops it; not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not indeed reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing »[10]. An example surely for all theologians!
Newman himself was a man of resilient hope. It stemmed from his deep faith in a caring God: God is not merely all-powerful, he is also infinitely merciful and loving. Easier for Newman would it be « to believe that there is no God at all, than to think He does not care »[11], and he thinks that even atheists would agree with him.
This hope is often expressed in beautiful lines in his prayers and meditations. He has many pages on hope in God as Creator and as Redeemer. Who is not touched and encouraged by such well-known lines as the following: « God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling. Therefore I will trust Him… »[12]
The same theme of Christian hope is frequently echoed by Newman in his letters of condolence on the death of dear friends. All that can give genuine comfort at that moment of final earthly separation is our faith in the resurrection and the hope that follows from it. Even to a friend who had been very ill, Newman writes reminiscing on how empty this life would be unless there were a future: « We seem to live and die as the leaves; but there is One who notes the fragrance of every one of them, and, when their hour comes, places them between the pages of the great Book »[13].
Newman could look to the experience of his own long life as personal proof of how Providence guides all things. « We have not eyes keen enough to follow out the lines of God’s providence and will, which meet at length, though at first sight they seem parallel, »[14] he wrote when he was thirty five years old. Much later he could testify that he scarcely needed faith in that Providence since he had such experience of it. When at seventy-eight years of age he was made a Cardinal, he said: « I have ever tried to leave my cause in the Hands of God and to be patient – and He has not forgotten me »[15]. The lines of God’s Providence and will had, as it were, met in his life.
The Triumph of Failure
Such was the hope that gave Newman his unfailing trust in Providence. The relevance of this vision is timeless since God’s omnipotent power and mercy, on which hope depends, are unchanging. What about the periods of trial and bewilderment, the things that do go wrong, the loss and failure that is part of life and can afflict the Church and individuals more acutely at certain periods?
Newman’s vision of hope, its theory and its practice, did not waver in such moments, under the shadow of the Cross. On numerous occasions he preached about the manner of living through such trying times: He exhorted people to seek the hand of God in the very difficulty itself and to recall that « He who imposed it [the trial] can take it away in His good time »[16]. To act impatiently is to sin; to wait hopefully with patience is to maintain peace of soul and to stay in God’s ways.
The very duties of our Christian profession of faith can be very daunting for anyone who does not earnestly seek the Lord. To be patient in the midst of sufferings, to discipline our selfish desires, to persevere in good works, to start afresh after every set-back, demands constant courage and the sustaining hope that does not allow us to desist from the good struggle.
« What does your Lord require of you, but to look at all things as they really are, to account them merely as His instruments, but to believe that good is good because He wills it, that He can bless as easily by hard stone as by bread, in the desert as in the fruitful field, if we have faith in Him who gives us the true bread from heaven?… Doubt not, then, His power to bring you through any difficulties, who gives you the command to encounter them »[17].
Newman knew well that it was relatively easy to preach such consoling and heartening words, though not so easy to put them into practice when sorrows come. He was also aware that the Christian world would at times be asked « to hope against hope, »[18] to persevere trustingly when all signs seemed to indicate the opposite to what one hoped for.
He had learned this calm but active waiting himself, relying on the power and merciful love of Him who guides all things by His wise providence. As a young man of twenty one, under the stress of an important examination, a coat of arms in a stained glass window of Oriel College caught his eyes. It had the soothing words: Pie repone te. Newman would recall them again in a letter to Pusey when they were very upset about the probable appointment of the liberal-minded Fellow of Oriel, R.D. Hampden, as Regius Professor of Divinity: « As for yourself, my Dear Pusey, you have nothing to do but keep quiet in mind as well as body…Pie repone te. I recollect when I was in at the examination for fellowship in Oriel and very much harassed and almost sinking, I happened to look up at the window and saw that motto in the painted glass. The words have been a kind of proverb to me ever since. Really we have nothing to fear »[19].
Newman may often have thought of those words during his life. They would bring him back to the source of all hope – Christ. Again and again, the events
of life put him to the test. He seemed destined to do good mainly through failure. Unlike Cardinal Manning, who had more immediate success and renown in Church and secular circles, Newman « was emphatically the recluse », observed Wilfrid Ward, « the apparent failure of the moment, the man of the future. It is not too much to say that his life was from the first a succession of apparent failures, each of which won him his opportunity of conferring on Christian thought a contribution, the value of which is now recognized by ever-increasing numbers, whether they accept his conclusions or not. And that value is not only speculative – the value of thought as thought – but concerns the abiding practical relations between Christianity and modern civilization »[20].
The same author, Wilfrid Ward, mentions various failures which led to important productions by Newman. His tutorship at Oriel became meaningless and Newman resigned, but then he had the time to write his first book, The Arians of the Fourth Century, and to lead the Oxford Movement. Tract 90 was condemned and the Tracts were suspended but that prepared the way for him to write An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. He failed to make the Catholic University of Ireland, of which he was Rector for seven years, an international centre of learning for English-speaking Catholics. Again he felt he had to resign but it was not before he produced that recognized classic of the theory of education, The Idea of a University and the Office and Work of Universities. His failure with The Rambler inspired much of the final chapter of The Apologia on his life as a Catholic.
« And lastly, the idea of development, exhibited in the world which marked his failure as an Anglican leader, while giving an apologia for the past, gives also the hope for the future; for it proposes to reconcile the proud semper eadem of Rome with a power in her organization and theology of adaptation to new circumstances in thought and life. And on this the thinkers and men of science in the Church build their hopes for the age to come »[21].
Newman’s vision of hope was guided by his faith in Providence. This brought him through trial and disappointment. As an old man he wrote: « It is the rule of
God’s Providence that we should succeed by failure »[22]. The triumph of failure was a notable feature of his own life.
Important is his attitude of mind when faced with serious troubles and obstacles, and this is as valid now as then, namely his discernment in faith of God’s hand in every cross. Typical is the Achilli trial when he was brought to court on false charges by a renegade priest. To his Oratorian brothers he explained his interior attitude: « Surely, the whole course of the trial which has come on me for the last year and a half, is nothing else than God’s act and will…can so extraordinary a Providence be for nothing?… When it broke upon me last August, that I might have to go to prison, I involuntarily said, ‘Well, if so, I ought to come out a Saint »[23].
Such a vision, inspiring hope and peace, is always relevant no matter what the Cross may be or how different the troubles.
On this Rock
When Newman looked abroad to find what body or group would be strong enough to sustain his vision of hope, he could find only the Roman Catholic Church up to the task. Five years before his reception he wrote as follows to his sister Jemima, when he was upset and despondent about secular interpretations of Scripture that denied the divine inspiration and normative value of the Bible: « I begin to have serious apprehensions lest any religious body is strong enough to withstand the league of evil, but the Roman Church. At the end of the first Millenary it withstood the fury of Satan – and now the end of a second is drawing on. It has (possesses) tried strength; what it has endured during these last centuries! and it is stronger than ever »[24].
However, in his Anglican years, Newman did display a deep trust in the Church of his birth, in its holiness and power to save, if those who belonged to it would only live up to their calling. A month after he wrote the above mentioned letter to his sister, he exhorted his parishioners to realize their Christian duty and share more fully in the life of the Church: « The Church is rising up around us day by day towards heaven, and we do nothing but object, or explain away, or criticize, or make excuses, or wonder. We fear to cast in our lot with the Saints, lest we become a party; we fear to seek the strait gate, lest we be of the few not the many »[25].
Later on as a Catholic his assurance and hope in the Church to overcome all attacks become more ardent and exuberant. In the discourse he gave at the first opening of the London Oratory in 1849, he chose to speak of the « Prospects of the Catholic Missioner » and specifically in such a large and irreligious city. His prose became animated as he contended that for a Catholic to preach to an indifferent or hostile world was no sign of special heroism because he had the Church’s experience of eighteen hundred years behind him and was following in the steps of St. Peter and the great Fathers of the Church and Popes: « There is nothing of special courage, nothing of special magnanimity, in a Catholic making light of the world, and beginning to preach to it, though it turn its face from him. He knows the nature and habits of the world; and it is his immemorial way of dealing with it; he does but act according to his vocation; he would not be a Catholic, did he act otherwise. He knows whose vessel he has entered; it is the bark of Peter… We have not chosen it to have fear about it; we have not entered it to escape out of it; no, but to go forth in it upon the flood of sin and unbelief, which would sink any other craft »[26].
Newman had a deep trust in God’s guidance of the Church and in a very special providence that directed her always. This made him long for the true Church, the custodian of Revelation. When he found her, he felt immensely happy.[27] He saw her as the sole consistent defender of religious and moral principles, the unchanging champion of revealed doctrine, the only institution that had nearly two thousand years of experience in the struggle for the same truth. There were periods of persecution, times when the religious authorities were not worthy of their charge or betrayed their trust, but the Church survived and men and women of holiness and charisma rose up to renew the life of the faithful and the human frame of the ecclesiastical institution.
The one charge brought against the Church of Rome by her opponents was that she was unchangeable. However, Newman himself worked out the concept of the true development of Christian doctrine. He showed that the Church does grow and develop, but that this growth is harmonious, that it incorporates and progresses but does not lose what it once attained and confessed. The truth once revealed, of which the Church is the guardian, is never corrupted or compromised. No other body claims infallibility, and if she were not guided by a higher Providence, how could she have survived the tests of history that she has come through and from which she has risen up with renewed vitality?
As for the future she need have no fear, for she has the living power to assimilate what is good and reject what is false and destructive. The final note of development is its chronic vigour. After a period of slumber there comes one of restoration. Depending on what we mean by changes, they may or may not take place. When they occur they are « consolidations or adaptations ». Otherwise, the Church is truly « incorrigible » – « change she cannot, if we listen to St. Athanasius or St. Leo; change she never will, if we believe the controversialist or alarmist of the present day »[28].
We have come together here, in this centre of learning where Newman himself was once a student of the sacred sciences. We are beside the tomb of Peter and the dwelling quarters of his successor. Some students listening to me may well be inspired to flesh out these thoughts that I have briefly mentioned. In Cardinal Newman’s writings they will learn to read the signs of the times and to examine the signs that give sure hope to his vision of faith for the future. Were Newman present here he would not fail to mention the enduring power and lasting truth of Peter’s word. « On this rock » the Lord has built his Church and promised final victory over the most daunting enemies.
To students in the Catholic University of Dublin, Newman spoke eloquently of his Cathedra sempiterna that gave surety to his vision of hope: « Deeply do I feel, ever will I protest, for I can appeal to the ample testimony of history to bear me out, that, in questions of right and wrong, there is nothing really strong in the whole world, nothing decisive and operative, but the voice of him, to whom have been committed the keys of the kingdom and the oversight of Christ’s flock. The voice of Peter is now, as it ever has been, a real authority, infallible when it teaches, prosperous when it commands, ever taking the lead wisely and distinctly in its own province, adding certainty to what is probable, and persuasion to what is certain. Before it speaks, the most saintly may mistake; and after it has spoken, the most gifted must obey.
Peter is no recluse, no abstracted student, no dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and gone, no projector of the visionary. Peter for eighteen hundred years has lived in the world; he has seen all fortunes, he has encountered all adversaries, he has shaped himself for all emergencies. If there ever was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been deeds, and whose commands prophecies, such is he in the history of ages, who sits from generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ and Doctor of His Church »[29].
There are many more intuitions by Newman that are harbingers of hope and that are becoming more apparent in our days. Among them are the role of an educated laity that would know their religion and be able to give an account of it and defend it; the value of our efforts towards Church unity which increase charity, mutual understanding and co-operation, while respecting the truth at all times; the unity he pleaded for between faith and reason, between theology and science; and the importance of Catholic Universities that broaden the mind and prepare believers to meet the attack of secular and atheistic thought.
For Newman did foresee an assault of infidelity, consisting of relativism, atheism, the spreading of Pantheistic beliefs and an indifference springing from the « absorbing interest » generated by scientific and technological conquests. He saw the seeds of future harm and confessed he had spent much of his life struggling against what he called « liberalism in religion » which relegates the practice of faith to the personal and private sphere, refusing to accept any one religion as true. And while he knew that without the gift of prophecy one could not be sure whether or not the foreboding threat would come to pass, he nevertheless made his « anticipations according to the signs of the times »[30] in the society of his day. It would be more than a century later when that phrase ‘the signs of the times’ would come into use in Church documents. Newman used it, not very frequently, but few people read those signs as discerningly as he did. He foresaw the rejection of religious truth and dogma with such difficult times ahead for the Church, that it might well seem that our Lord was once again asleep in Peter’s boat.
Yet, Newman did not despair. He did not end his days a sad or disappointed old man. He had struggled for the cause of truth all his life. He even saw advantages in the open confrontation of his own age, which is the same in ours. In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, when the Catholic faith had not been splintered by the Protestant Reformers, the assault of unbelief was more cautious and concealed. But in his day as at present, revealed truth itself is questioned, masks are thrown aside, while secret threats come out clearly into the open. Newman had no doubt which situation he preferred. When Rector of the Catholic University in Dublin, he said: « I have no hesitation in saying (apart of course from moral and ecclesiastical considerations, and under correction of the command and policy of the Church), that I prefer to live in an age when the fight is in the day, not in the twilight; and think it a gain to be speared by a foe, rather than to be stabbed by a friend… It is one great advantage of an age in which unbelief speaks out, that Faith can speak out too; that, if falsehood assails Truth, Truth can assail falsehood »[31].
When Newman was over eighty years old, a correspondent asked him if the Roman Catholic Church would survive a new Bill passed in Parliament which augured ill for the cause of religion. He replied giving his own opinion which was the message he had advocated for over half a century. It portrays a man well aware of the dangers yet quietly confident in God’s providence and fully convinced that a higher Power guides the destiny of the Church and the unfolding of history. « I have ever anticipated a great battle between good and evil, and have ever been led to think the duty of the champions of truth, when the conflict came, was anticipated for them in the words of Moses, ‘Fear ye not, stand still and see magnalia Domini. He shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace.’ And so in the Psalm. ‘Be still, and know that I am God' »[32]. And pointing to various crises in past centuries at the time of the Roman Empire, later with the Arian heresy and then with the rise of Protestantism, he states that it was not man that saved the Church and the faithful but that it was God who came to the rescue.
Conclusion
Newman’s vision of hope is equally relevant today. I have the distinct impression that if the Cardinal were writing today about our present needs he would echo the words of Pope John Paul II in his recent Apostolic Letter at the close of the Great Jubilee Year 2000: « Duc in altum! » Let us go forward in hope! A new millennium is opening before the Church like a vast ocean upon which we shall venture, relying on the help of Christ. The Son of God, who became incarnate two thousand years ago out of love for humanity, is at work even today: we need discerning eyes to see this and, above all, a generous heart to become the instruments of his work…we can count on the power of the same Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost and who impels us still today to start anew, sustained by the hope which does not disappoint »[33].
Like Newman, « we do not know what is coming, but », as he said, « we do know that we shall conquer »[34].
[1]Cf. The Living Thoughts of Cardinal Newman (presented by H. Tristam), Cassell, London 1948, p. 37.
[2]Cf. J. Bertram, « Newman on the End of the Millenary. A Talk to give you Hope », in Friends of Cardinal Newman Newsletter, Birmingham (Christmas 2000) 6-8.
[3]Catholic Sermons of Cardinal Newman (edited at the Birmingham Oratory), Burns & Oates, London 1957, pp. 27-28.
[4]J.H. Newman, Sermons 1824-1843, vol. I, Sermons on the Liturgy and the Sacraments and on Christ the Mediator, (edited from previously unpublished manuscripts by P. Murray), Clarendon Press, London 1991, p. 90.
[5]« If we shrink from suffering and start aside, we are novices in the school of Christian hope – The prospect of future glory should fill the mind – what a poor perception of it have we, if it does not strengthen us to submit ourselves with composure to the ills of this life! ». Ibid., p. 91.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid.
[8]J.H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, 8 vols., Longmans, Green and Co., London 1900, vol. IV, p. 322.
[9]« He watches for Christ who has a sensitive, eager, apprehensive mind; who is awake, alive, quick-sighted, zealous in seeking and honoring Him; who looks out for Him in all that happens, and who would not be surprised, who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed, if he found that He was coming at once. » Ibid., p. 323.
[10]J.H. Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached Before The University of Oxford Between A.D. 1826 and 1843, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1909, p. 313.
[11]C.S. Dessain et al. (eds.), The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vols. I-VIII, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1978-1999; vols. XI-XXII, Thomas Nelson, London 1961-1972; vols. XXIII-XXXI, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973-1977; text cited from vol. XIX, p. 127.
[12]W. Neville (ed.), Meditations and Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1911, p. 301; Cf. pp. 299-326.
[13]Letters and Diaries, vol. XXI, p. 51.
[14]Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. V, p. 48.
[15]Letters and Diaries, vol. XXIX, p. 72; cf. Meditations and Devotions, p. 421.
[16] Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. VIII, p. 44; cf. vol. V, p. 233.
[17] Ibid., vol. I, pp. 347-348.
[18] Speaking in an Anglican sermon about the coming of Christ and the subjecting of our reason and our feelings to God’s revealed Word, he once said: « We may be commanded, if so be, to hope against hope, or to expect Christ’s coming, in a certain sense, against reason. It is not inconsistent with God’s general dealings towards us, that He should bid us feel and act as if that were at hand, which yet, if we went by what experience tells us, we should say was not likely to be at hand ». Ibid., vol. VI, p. 260.
[19]Letters and Diaries, vol. V, p. 215.
[20]W. Ward, Ten Personal Studies, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1908, pp. 278-279.
[21]Ibid., p. 282; cf. pp. 278-285.
[22]Letters and Diaries, vol. XXX, p. 142.
[23]P. Murray (ed.), Newman the Oratorian, Gill and Macmillan Ltd., Dublin 1969, pp. 244-245.
[24]Letters and Diaries, vol. VII, p. 245.
[25]Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. V, pp. 355-356.
[26] J.H. Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1909, p. 245.
[27]For a study on this theme of providence in Newman’s ecclesiology see K. Dietz, Divine Providence in the Ecclesiology of John Henry Newman and its Influence on his Conversion to the Roman Catholic Church (MS), Rome, « Angelicum », 1999.
[28]J.H. Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1909, p. 444.
[29] J.H. Newman, My Campaign in Ireland (Printed for private circulation by A. King & Co.), Aberdeen 1896, pp. 211-212.
[30]J.H. Newman, The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, Longmans, Green and Co., London 1909, p. 386.
[31]Ibid., pp. 381-382.
[32] Letters and Diaries, vol. XXX, p. 220; cf. Ex 14:13-14; Ps 45(46):10.
[33] John Paul II., Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 58.
[34] Sermon Notes of John Henry Cardinal Newman 1849-1878 (edited by the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory), Gracewing, Herefordshire and University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN 2 2000, p. 222.