Stephanie A. Mann's Blog, page 7

Saint John Fisher's "A Defense of Free Will against Luther"

From an article in First Things--brought to my attention by one of my theologian friends--I found out about an upcoming publication of an important work by Saint John Fisher, the holy Bishop of Rochester, executed on June 22, 1535. The article by Michael Root, "Overcoming Theological Amnesia", argues that we skip too many centuries in our overview of Catholic theology, jumping from Saint Thomas Aquinas to the Ressourcement movement, and proposes:

We need to recover what has been lost. We need a wider ressourcement, not unlike the ressourcement of the mid-twentieth century, but one that casts a wider, more “catholic” net. The endeavor will not be easy. Late medieval and early modern theologians are hard nuts to crack. When a late medieval theologian says that a certain adjective is applied in the second mode of per se predication, one has to stop and figure out what that means. And the early modern theologians can be horribly long-winded. In many ways, twelfth- and thirteenth-century theologians are easier for us to understand than those of the fourteenth or seventeenth centuries. But the hard work will be worth it.

Root later comments:

It’s easy to anticipate the objection that a wider ressourcement seeks to perform the impossible, or at least what is impossible for most of us. Mastery of an almost two-thousand-year history of theology is more than can be expected from the theologian. Many important pre-modern theological works, especially from the late medieval and early modern periods, are untranslated, and most of us do not have the Latin facility typical of our theological forebears. Nevertheless, things are improving. The Catholic University of America Press series of Early Modern Catholic Sources is making available in English translation significant works that have been long ignored. Google Books, the Hathi Trust, and the Internet Archive make older editions available as never before.

So I clicked on the link to the CUA Early Modern Catholic Sources website and found this: A Defense of Free Will against Luther: Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio, Article 36, by Saint John Fisher; translated by Thomas P. Scheck. 

From the book's blurb:

Lord Acton said that of all the works written against Martin Luther in the beginning of the Reformation, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester's Assertionis Lutheranae Confutatio of 1523 was the most important. Oddly enough this massive work of Catholic apologetics, composed in Latin, has never been rendered into the English language. It contains Fisher's detailed responses to all forty-one articles defended by Martin Luther against the censures of Pope Leo X found in the bull Exsurge Domine (1520).

In this volume Thomas Scheck presents for the first time in English translation, introduced, and annotated, Fisher's Preface to the Reader, Ten Truths, and the most important single article found in Fisher's Confutation, namely his Confutation of Luther's Assertion of Article 36, in which Fisher defends the existence of free will against Luther's claim that free will is a fiction with no reality. Fisher's reply is thoroughly grounded in Scripture and in the interpretation of Scripture found in the ancient Fathers of the Church. Interestingly to defend free will he makes abundant use of Augustine, Origen, Jerome, Tertullian and John Chrysostom. . . .
Something to consider next month!

Book Review: The Hidden Power of Silence in the Mass

Subtitle: A Guide for Encountering Christ in the Liturgy. Please note that I purchased this book at Eighth Day Books in Wichita, Kansas. From the publisher, Sophia Institute Press:

In this game-changing book, Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B., reveals how you can actively listen and open yourself to receive God’s personal love for you in the Mass, where our Lord waits to quench your deepest longing and heal your wounds. Drawing from the wisdom of the saints, modern-day spiritual giants, and his own penetrating reflections, you will learn how to quiet your mind, stretch your heart, and become childlike in the sense of experiencing the sacred mysteries with wonder and awe.

The Mass, as most Catholics are aware, consists of words and gestures through which the Church worships the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. But as far fewer Catholics know, the periods of silence are more than pauses or empty spaces, as Fr. Hicks explains. They are beautifully textured with prescribed prayers spoken quietly by the priest, meaningful images such as incense and chalice veils, and expectant faith ready to surrender or receive from God in particular ways. Learning how to attune our hearts to these silences can greatly increase the fruitfulness of our reception of grace at Mass.

In these soul-enriching pages, you will explore the various textures of silence in general, the ways in which silence affects your interior life, and how silence can draw you into more intimate prayer. . . .
You may also read a preview on their website.
Contents:
Foreword by The Most Reverend Andrew Cozzens (the Chairman of the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress)
Introduction
1. Silence in Prayer    Prescriptions for Silence in the Roman Rite
        The Secret Prayers of the Priest
    Learning Silence in Prayer
        Mary's Example
        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing Silence in Prayer
(Each chapter ends with some reflection questions)
Father Boniface identifies five kinds of silence: Ascetical, Mystical, Sacrificial, Contemplative, and Eternal; Father Hicks treats each one in chapters following the sequences of the celebration of the Holy Mass:
2. Preparing for Mass (Ascetical)    Images for reducing distractions
        Making room for God within us
        Stretching open
        Settling a snow globe
    Images for vulnerability
        Becoming a child
        Remembering whom we are meeting        Entering another world
    Learning ascetical silence
        Mary's Example        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing ascetical silence3. Encountering the Word (Mystical)    Awe and wonder
    A pure heart sees God
        Pure heart and lips to proclaim the Gospel
        The cleansing power of the Word
    Entering the silence of God
    Learning mystical silence        Mary's Example        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing mystical silence4. The Silence of Offering (Sacrificial)    Candles and Cut Flowers
        Candles
        Cut flowers (vs. potted plants)
    Our humanity becomes divinity
    The Fiery Furnace of the Altar
    Incense: Wounds Become Worship
    A Purer Offering
    The Eucharistic Prayer
    Learning sacrificial silence        Mary's Example        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing sacrificial silence5. Silence of Adoration and Communion (Contemplative)    Communion with the Risen Body and the Whole Church
    His Body and Blood set us free
    Finding refuge in Christ's Body and Blood
    Our Guardian for eternal life
    Learning contemplative silence        Mary's Example        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing contemplative silence6. Savoring in Silence (Eternal)    Purification of the vessels includes our hearts
    Maronite farewell to the altar
    Thanksgiving after Mass
    Learning eternal silence        Mary's Example        Learning from St. Benedict
        Practicing the silence of savoring
ConclusionBibliography
As you can see from the outline this is a very systematic and schematic book but it's not an artificial organization at all. It flows from the pairing up of the forms of silence with the sequence of the Holy Mass. Thus we do need to prepare ourselves for Mass by detaching ourselves from earthly things as we enter a heavenly celebration. Then we can listen to the readings and the prayers with awe and wonder. 
In Chapter 4, Father Boniface provides some great guidance for the laity during the Offertory, the Preparation of Bread and Wine, and the Presentation of Gifts. His emphasis on the symbolism of cut flowers rather than potted plants or flowers at the Altar and in the Sanctuary is important: they are sacrificial as their beauty will die without their roots; they are costly and must be attended to by the sacristans as offerings. He gave me a deeper insight into the use of incense during the Mass (at the beginning, before the priest proclaims the Gospel, during the Offertory, including the incensation of the congregation, and during the Canon of the Mass as priest elevates the Body and the Blood of Christ after the Consecration). I've always thought of the raising of my prayers like incense before the Altar, but Hicks comments on how the incense, formed from the sap of "a wounded tree" represent our wounds and sins healed by Christ, the burning coal: "the furnace of God's consuming love"!
As I was reading this in late Advent in the Adoration Chapel in my parish church it made me think of Saint Robert Southwell's "The Burning Babe"!

“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
      So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”

And of course, the time after the laity has received Holy Communion needs to provide a period of silence, Eucharistic hymns notwithstanding. And remaining in silence after Mass for further mediation is important, rather than rushing out to the parking lot or starting long conversations in the pews while others are still praying . . .
In chapter six, Father Boniface comments on the Maronite Rite Prayer Bidding Farewell to the Altar, prayed by the priest after Mass. Throughout the book he also makes some comparisons between the Traditional Latin Mass rubrics, prayers, and silences (Missal of 1962 and before) and those in the Novus Ordo Mass (Missal of 1970). Often he, to this reader, has to stretch to approve some of the changes made and the options in the Novus Ordo that make periods of silence shorter or non-existent. Yes, he demonstrates that there should be silence during the celebration of the current Roman Rite, but he has to acknowledge that there is more room for abuse of these rubrics. Priests reading this book might be moved to emphasize those silences as they celebrate Mass; laity reading the book might be moved to request more silence during Mass.
The works cited and bibliography includes sources by authors one would expect in such a book: Romano Guardini, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis, Rudolf Otto, Cardinal Sarah,and of course Saint Benedict of Nursia, etc. There are also some other interesting choices: the Catholic Psychiatrist Conrad W. Baars (1919-1981), Born Only Once: The Miracle of Affirmation; James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones; Judith E. Glaser (1946-2018), Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results, and others.
I found the book, perhaps not "game-changing", but insightful and helpful to my actual participation and reception of the mysteries at Holy Mass, which I try to attend as often as possible.

Preview: Newman on the Wedding Feast at Cana and "adoring the glory of Christ"

On Monday, January 20, Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will look at how Saint John Henry Newman, in two of his Anglican sermons, reflected on the Miracle of Water Changed into Wine at the Wedding Feast of Cana, described in the Gospel of John (2:1-12) and depicted above by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel. I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.
In the first of these sermons, "The Season of Epiphany", sermon number 6 in Volume 7 of the Parochial and Plain Sermons, Newman examines this miracle in the context of how "the glory of Christ" is most apparent in the liturgy in that Church of England season (the Anglican Ordinariate uses the same language; instead of numbered Sundays in Ordinary Time, it lists numbered Sundays after the Epiphany):

THE Epiphany is a season especially set apart for adoring the glory of Christ. The word may be taken to mean the manifestation of His glory, and leads us to the contemplation of Him as a King upon His throne in the midst of His court, with His servants around Him, and His guards in attendance. At Christmas we commemorate His grace; and in Lent His temptation; and on Good Friday His sufferings and death; and on Easter Day His victory; and on Holy Thursday His return to the Father; and in Advent we anticipate His second coming. And in all of these seasons He does something, or suffers something: but in the Epiphany and the weeks after it, we celebrate Him, not as on His field of battle, or in His solitary retreat, but as an august and glorious King; we view Him as the Object of our worship. Then only, during His {75} whole earthly history, did He fulfil the type of Solomon, and held (as I may say) a court, and received the homage of His subjects . . .

Jesus doesn't face the opposition of the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, or his hometown in the Gospels for the Sundays after the Christmas season. Newman outlines the sequence thus:

I said that at this time of year the portions of our services which are proper to the season are of a character to remind us of a king on his throne, receiving the devotion of his subjects. Such is the narrative itself, already referred to, of the coming of the wise men, who sought Him with their gifts from a place afar off, and fell down and worshipped Him. Such too, is the account of His baptism, which forms the Second Lesson of the feast of the Epiphany, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and a Voice from heaven acknowledged Him to be the Son of God. And if we look at the Gospels read throughout the season, we shall find them all containing some kingly action of Christ, the Mediator between God and man. Thus in the Gospel for the First Sunday, He manifests His glory in the temple at the age of twelve years, sitting among the doctors, and astonishing them with His wisdom. In the Gospel for the Second Sunday He manifests His glory at the wedding feast, when He turned the water into wine, a miracle not of necessity or urgency, but {77} especially an august and bountiful act—the act of a King, who out of His abundance gave a gift to His own, therewith to make merry with their friends.

In another Anglican sermon from a collection titled Sermons on Subjects of the Day, "The Lord's Last Supper and His First," Newman focuses more on the Marriage Feast of Cana, noting that as Our Lord celebrated the Passover with the Apostles the night before His Crucifixion, He began His ministry, and confirmed His disciples' belief in Him at Mary's request. The sermon becomes a meditation on the relationship between Mother and Son:

Nay, may we not say that our Lord Himself had commenced His ministry, that is, bade farewell to His earthly home, at a feast? for it was at the marriage entertainment at Cana of Galilee that He did His first miracle, and manifested forth His glory. He was in the house of friends, He was surrounded by intimates and followers, and He took a familiar interest in the exigencies of the feast. He supplied a principal want which was interfering with their festivity. It was His contribution to it. By supplying it miraculously He showed that He was beginning a new life, the life of a Messenger {32} from God, and that that feast was the last scene of the old life. And, moreover, He made use of one remarkable expression, which seems to imply that this change of condition really was in His thoughts, if we may dare so to speak of them, or at all to interpret them. For when His Mother said unto Him, "They have no wine," He answered, "What have I to do with thee?" (John 2:3, 4) He had had to do with her for thirty years. She had borne Him, she had nursed Him, she had taught Him. And when He had reached twelve years old, at the age when the young may expect to be separated from their parents, He had only become more intimately one with them, for we are told that "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." (Luke 2:51)

Rather poignantly, Newman reflects on how Jesus will soon part from His Mother at the end of these "hidden years" in Nazareth: 

Eighteen years had passed away since this occurred. St. Joseph (as it seems) had been taken to his rest. Mary remained; but from Mary, His Mother, He must now part, for the three years of His ministry. He had gently intimated this to her at the very time of His becoming subject to her, intimated that His heavenly Father's work was a higher call than any earthly duty. "Wist ye not," He said, when found in the Temple, "that I must be about My Father's business?" (Luke 2:49.) The time was now come when this was to be fulfilled, and, therefore, when His Mother addressed Him at the marriage feast, He answered, "What have I to do with thee?" What is between Me and thee, My Mother, any longer? "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand." (Mark 1:15)

Newman continues to emphasize this separation between Mother and Son, highlighting those passages from Matthew (12:48-50) and Luke (11:27-28) in which His Mother is mentioned. Then he concludes:

Nor is there any token recorded in the Gospels of His affection for His Mother, till His ministry was brought to an end, and we know well what were the tender words which almost immediately preceded "It is finished." His love revived, that is, He allowed it to appear, as His Father's work was ending. "There stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary {34} the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy Mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." (John 19:25-27)

He took leave then of His Mother at a feast, as He afterwards took leave of His disciples at a feast. . . . 

[The illustration above is (Public Domain) is of Jesus leaving His Mother as Peter and the others wait for Him by Bernhard Strigel, a 16th century German painter to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.]

Among the meditations on the Litany of Loreto Newman wrote years later as a Catholic priest at the Birmingham Oratory, we can find an echo of these thoughts about Jesus and His Mother:

For thirty years she was blessed with the continual presence of her Son—nay, she had Him in subjection. But the time came when that war called for Him for which He had come upon earth. Certainly He came, not simply to be the Son of Mary, but to be the Saviour of Man, and {47} therefore at length He parted from her. She knew then what it was to be the mother of a soldier. He left her side; she saw Him no longer; she tried in vain to get near Him. He had for years lived in her embrace, and after that, at least in her dwelling—but now, in His own words, "The Son of Man had not where to lay His head." And then, when years had run out, she heard of His arrest, His mock trial, and His passion. At last she got near Him—when and where?—on the way to Calvary: and when He had been lifted upon the Cross. And at length she held Him again in her arms: yes—when He was dead. True, He rose from the dead; but still she did not thereby gain Him, for He ascended on high, and she did not at once follow Him.

At the end of the first sermon, "The Season of Epiphany", Newman describes how the liturgical seasons of the Church should teach us a lesson about the seasons of our lives:

For all seasons we must thank Him, for time of sorrow and time of joy, time of warfare and time of peace. And the more we thank Him for the one, the more we shall be drawn to thank Him for the other. Each has its own proper fruit, and its own peculiar blessedness. Yet our mortal flesh shrinks from the one, and of itself prefers the other;—it prefers rest to toil, peace to war, joy to sorrow, health to pain and sickness. When then Christ gives us what is pleasant, let us take it as a refreshment by the way, that we may, when God calls, go in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. Let us rejoice in Epiphany with trembling, that at Septuagesima we may go into the vineyard with the labourers with cheerfulness, and may sorrow in Lent with thankfulness; let us rejoice now, not as if we have attained, but in hope of attaining. Let us take our present happiness, not as our true rest, but, as what the land of Canaan was to the Israelites,—a type and shadow of it. If we now {85} enjoy God's ordinances, let us not cease to pray that they may prepare us for His presence hereafter. If we enjoy the presence of friends, let them remind us of the communion of saints before His throne. Let us trust in nothing here, yet draw hope from every thing—that at length the Lord may be our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning may be ended.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Newman on "Love, the One Thing Needful" on SRMS

Last Monday, January 6, the winter storm meant a couple of snow days for the Son Rise Morning Show team, so we skipped the Newman sermon we planned to discuss that day. We'll close out our Newman Advent/Christmas series with a Parochial and Plain Sermon, "Love the One Thing Needful". There's an excerpted portion of this sermon in Christopher O. Blum's Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Advent and Christmas.

So, on Monday, January 13, I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour of the Son Rise Morning Show on EWTN, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

As we are at the beginning of a New Year, even though the Christmas season has technically come to an end with the celebration of Our Lord's Baptism on Sunday, January 12, this sermon seems appropriate. At daily Mass we have been reading so much about love from the First Letter of Saint John; we are all in the midst of making, breaking, and remaking New Year's Resolutions; Newman seems to understand and to be encouraging us to remain resolute:

I suppose the greater number of persons who try to live Christian lives, and who observe themselves with any care, are dissatisfied with their own state on this point, namely. that, whatever their religious attainments may be, yet they feel that their motive is not the highest;—that the love of God, and of man for His sake, is not their ruling principle. They may do much, nay, if it so happen, they may suffer much; but they have little reason to think that they love much, that they do and suffer for love's sake. I do not mean that they thus express themselves exactly, but that they are dissatisfied with themselves, and that when this dissatisfaction is examined into, it will be found ultimately to come to this, though they will give different accounts of it. They may call themselves cold, or hard-hearted, or fickle, or double-minded, or doubting, or dim-sighted, or {328} weak in resolve, but they mean pretty much the same thing, that their affections do not rest on Almighty God as their great Object. And this will be found to be the complaint of religious men among ourselves, not less than others; their reason and their heart not going together; their reason tending heavenwards, and their heart earthwards.

As he points out, Jesus has told us "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15), but we may "feel that though [we] are, to a certain point, keeping God's commandments, yet love is not proportionate, does not keep pace, with [our] obedience; that obedience springs from some source short of love." We can feel "hollow; a fair outside, without a spirit within it." We can be conscientious; we can want to obey His commandments, and yet we can feel that something is missing. 

And Newman has some suggestions for how we can deal with these conflicts:

First, he recommends detachment:

Till we, in a certain sense, detach ourselves from our bodies, our minds will not be in a state to receive divine impressions, and to exert heavenly aspirations. A smooth and easy life, an uninterrupted enjoyment of the goods of Providence, full meals, soft raiment, well-furnished homes, the pleasures of sense, the feeling of security, the consciousness of wealth,—these, and the like, if we are not careful, choke up all the avenues of the soul, through which the light and breath of heaven might come to us. A hard life is, alas! no certain method of becoming spiritually minded, but it is one out of the means by which Almighty God makes us so. We must, at least at seasons, defraud ourselves of nature, if we would not be {338} defrauded of grace. If we attempt to force our minds into a loving and devotional temper, without this preparation, it is too plain what will follow: the grossness and coarseness, the affectation, the unreality, the presumption, the hollowness, in a word, what Scripture calls the Hypocrisy, which we see around us; that state of mind in which the reason, seeing what we should be, and the conscience enjoining it, and the heart being unequal to it, some or other pretence is set up, by way of compromise.

Then, we should think about what Jesus suffered for us, "to cherish . . . a constant sense of the love of [our] Lord and Saviour in dying on the cross" for us:

Think of the Cross when you rise and when you lie down, when you go out and when you come in, when you eat and when you walk and when you converse, when you buy and when you sell, when you labour and when you rest, consecrating and sealing all your doings with this one mental action, the thought of the Crucified. Do not talk of it to others; be silent, like the penitent woman, who showed her love in deep subdued acts. She "stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the Ointment." And Christ said of her, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." [Luke vii. 38, 47.]

And finally, we should think about the blessings we have received:

And, further, let us dwell often upon those His manifold mercies to us and to our brethren, which are the consequence of His coming upon earth; His adorable counsels, as manifested in our personal election,—how it is that we are called and others not; the wonders of His grace towards us, from our infancy until now; the gifts He has given us; the aid He has vouchsafed; the answers He has accorded to our prayers. And, further, let us, as far as we have the opportunity, meditate upon His dealings with His Church from age to age; on His faithfulness to His promises, and the mysterious mode of their fulfilment; how He has ever led His people forward safely and prosperously on the whole amid so many enemies; what unexpected events have worked {340} His purposes; how evil has been changed into good; how His sacred truth has ever been preserved unimpaired; how Saints have been brought on to their perfection in the darkest times. And, further, let us muse over the deep gifts and powers lodged in the Church: what thoughts do His ordinances raise in the believing mind!—what wonder, what awe, what transport, when duly dwelt upon!

Newman delivered this sermon at the end of the pre-Lenten period called Septuagesima, on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday (Quinquagesima), and he ends with these final words of encouragement:

It is by such deeds and such thoughts that our services, our repenting, our prayers, our intercourse with men, will become instinct with the spirit of love. Then we do everything thankfully and joyfully, when we are temples of Christ, with His Image set up in us. Then it is that we mix with the world without loving it, for our affections are given to another. We can bear to look on the world's beauty, for we have no heart for it. We are not disturbed at its frowns, for we live not in its smiles. We rejoice in the House of Prayer, because He is there "whom our soul loveth." We can condescend to the poor and lowly, for they are the presence of Him who is Invisible. We are patient in bereavement, adversity, or pain, for they are Christ's tokens.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us! 

Preview: Newman on "The Mystery of Divine Condescension"

Happy New Year!

We'll resume our Advent/Christmas series on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, January 6, 2025 (the traditional date of Epiphany) with one of Saint John Henry Newman's Catholic sermons, "The Mystery of Divine Condescension", from his Discourses to Mixed Congregations. 

Newman dedicated his first published work as a priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri to the then Bishop of Melipotamus and Vicar Apostolic of the London District, Nichols Wiseman, in 1849 (before the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850--when he would become the first Archbishop of Westminster). In his great biography of Newman, Father Ian Ker notes that the rhetoric in these sermons "is often more Italianate than Newmanian"! (p. 342)

I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.
Newman's topic, of course, is the Incarnation and his purpose is to persuade his congregation to appreciate, as much as is humanly possible, the great mystery of God deigning, not just to come down to us as an infant in Bethlehem, to give us grace, and to redeem us, but to raise us up to be like Him. Then he presents us with an even greater challenge in this mystery.
There are indeed some glorious passages in his sermon (which you can read in its entirety here). I'm focusing on the paragraphs excerpted in Christopher O. Blum's Waiting for Christ: Meditations for Advent and Christmas:

You say that God and man never can be one, that man cannot bear the sight and touch of his Creator, nor the Creator condescend to the feebleness of the creature; but blush and be confounded to hear, O peevish, restless hearts, that He has come down from His high throne and humbled Himself to the creature, in order that the creature might be inspired and strengthened to rise to Him.
Your God has taken on Him your nature, and now prepare yourself to see in human flesh that glory and that beauty on which the Angels gaze. Since you are to see Emmanuel, since "the brilliancy of the Eternal Light and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the Image of His goodness," is to walk the earth, since the Son of the Highest is to be born of woman, since the manifold attributes of the Infinite are to be poured out before your eyes through material channels and the operations of a human soul, since He, whose contemplation did but trouble you in Nature, is coming to take you captive by a manifestation, which is both intelligible to you and a pledge that He loves you one by one, raise high your expectations, for surely they cannot suffer disappointment.

But even that is not enough, because Newman contrasts the glory we could expect from the Son of God becoming man to what we know of how Jesus lived among us; we think:

doubtless He will choose some calm and holy spot, and men will go out thither and find their Incarnate God. He will be tenant of some paradise, like Adam or Elias, or He will dwell in the mystic garden of the Canticles, where nature ministers its {301} best and purest to its Creator. "The fig-tree will put forth her green figs, the vines in flower yield their sweet smell;" "spikenard and saffron" will be there; "the sweet cane and cinnamon, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief perfumes;" "the glory of Libanus, the beauty of Carmel," before "the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God". There will He show Himself at stated times, with Angels for His choristers and saints for His doorkeepers, to the poor and needy, to the humble and devout, to those who have kept their innocence undefiled, or have purged their sins away by long penance and masterful contrition.

Instead, 

He has come, not to assert a claim, but to pay a debt. Instead of wealth, He has come poor; instead of honour, He has come in ignominy; instead of blessedness, He has come to suffer. He has been delivered over from His birth to pain and contempt; His delicate frame is worn down by cold and heat, by hunger and sleeplessness; His hands are rough and bruised with {302} a mechanic's toil; His eyes are dimmed with weeping; His Name is cast out as evil. He is flung amid the throng of men; He wanders from place to place; He is the companion of sinners. . . . He hath no beauty nor comeliness; He is despised and the most abject of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity;" nay, He is a "leper, and smitten of God, and afflicted". And so His clothes are torn off, and He is lifted up upon the bitter Cross, and there He hangs, a spectacle for profane, impure, and savage eyes, and a mockery for the evil spirit whom He had cast down into hell.  

We have travelled from Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem and finally to Golgotha. 

Finally, Newman offers a different model for us to follow when we struggle to comprehend this tremendous, mysterious condescension--His Mother:

Oh, wayward man! . . . when wilt thou cease to make thyself thine own centre, and learn that God is infinite in all He does, infinite when He reigns in heaven, infinite when He serves on earth, exacting our homage in the midst of His Angels, and winning homage from us in the midst of sinners? Adorable He is in His eternal rest, adorable in the glory of His court, adorable in the beauty of His works, most adorable of all, most royal, most persuasive in His deformity. Think you {303} not, my brethren, that to Mary, when she held Him in her maternal arms, when she gazed on the pale countenance and the dislocated limbs of her God, when she traced the wandering lines of blood, when she counted the weals, the bruises, and the wounds, which dishonoured that virginal flesh, think you not that to her eyes it was more beautiful than when she first worshipped it, pure, radiant, and fragrant, on the night of His nativity?

These passages may be, as Newman himself commented, "more rhetorical than my former sermons" in a letter (LD, xiii, 335, according to Father Ker), but that rhetoric certainly has a great impact, offering us, as we conclude this Christmas season after the Baptism of Our Lord, insights into "The Mystery of Divine Condescension". Like the hymn, "What Child is This?", Newman brings the Nativity and the Passion together:
Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce him through,
The Cross be borne for me, for you;
Hail, hail the Word Made Flesh,
The babe, the son of Mary!
Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Book Review: "John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed"

Please note, I purchased this book from Eighth Day Books: John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed by Ida Friederike Gorres. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2024.

Edited and with an introduction by Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz

Translated by Jennifer S. Bryson

Contents:

Translator's Preface 

Quotations and Citations: Hunting and Reverse Engineering"Dark, 17" and Detective WorkThe Citations: Layers of ComplicationsOrthography: A Patchwork QuiltAcknowledgementsIntroduction: A New Discovery. Ida Friederike Gorres on NewmanHagiography: A Segment of Gorres' Life's WorkA New Discovery: A Newman DraftThe Postwar Period: Exiting the Ark, Friendship with Newman Specialist Father BreuchaSearching for What is Distinctive about This BookCircling Back Later OnUnique ApproachThe Book:I. The Life of Newman    1. The Man Who Was Sacrificed
        An Initial Reconnaissance of His Life
    2. The Golden Apple
    3. Newman's Religious and Human Character in Letters and Sketches
    4. Passion for the Truth
    5. Taking Christianity Seriously: The Tracts and Sermons
    6. Rome: A Mix of Hatred and Love
    7. Newman Brought Low
    8. Newman's Piety
    9. Two Poems by Newman ("The Two Worlds" The Oratory, 1862; The Death of Moses" Off Ithaca, December 30, 1832)

II. Conscience    10. On Conscience

III. Encore    11. A Sketch of the Life of Newman

Appendix A: Timeline of the Life of John Henry NewmanAppendix Be: Timeline of the Life of Ida Friederike Gorres
Register of PersonsBibliography Index

This book takes me back, takes me way back to the January of 1979 when I attended the Newman School of Catholic Thought at (then named) St. Paul's Parish-Newman Center. From Ida Friederike Gorres I hear, among other things, what many of the college students, including me, there and then cried out: "Why didn't the Catholic Church in England listen to Newman? Why didn't they support his goals to revive Catholicism in Victorian England and beyond by engaging the laity, especially young men and women? Why did the leaders of Church relegate him to the Oratory in Birmingham? Why did they waste his talents?"

As Gorres examines the sacrifice(s) of Newman's life, she notes not only his loss of friends, family and influence because of his conversion to Catholicism, but how he sacrificed his intellect to the Truth, by not discovering it through his efforts but to finding what was objectively true and outside himself, so that he had to decrease so that He could increase. 

In the chapter on Rome (6.), I was impressed by Gorres' explanation of how the Vatican's over site of justice and order in Rome (and in the Papal States) caused Newman great difficulty: he saw "Roman corruptions" and "priestly rule" creating "physical and moral distress" (pp. 142-145), and that influenced his distaste for the Papacy. (But was England that much better at that time: debtors prisons, poor houses, and slums?, she notes.)

In the chapter "Newman Brought Low", Gorres contrasts how the hierarchy wasted his talents with how the laity wrote to him for advise and counsel, as he answered thousands of letter from potential converts to Catholicism, Catholics asking for spiritual direction, etc. So while he sacrificed the larger influence he could have had, he was sought out nonetheless.

As does Father William R. Lamm, Gorres offers excellent insights into Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons at Oxford and his wonderful efforts to lead his congregation, especially the students, to take "Christianity Seriously", to make it real for them and to impact their lives. In that context, and with the success of his efforts, Gorres frames the famous Tract 90, as Newman sought a firmer foundation for the doctrinal and liturgical reform of the Church of England. (Chapter 5)

Overall, however, I wanted more context for why, in 1940s Germany, Gorres was so attracted to Newman. She travelled to the Oratory in Birmingham in 1949, as the Introduction notes, and much of her research and reading into Newman took place between 1944 and 1949. I was surprised to read that there was a conference coinciding with the one hundred anniversary of Newman's conversion in Cologne, Germany when a similar celebratory conference couldn't be held in England during World War II, according to the Catholic University of America's American Essays for the Newman Centennial! (In the Introduction to that book, Father John K. Ryan is as certain that Newman would never be seriously considered a canonized saint as Gorres (in Chapter I of this book) is that Newman would be canonized and should be considered a Doctor of the Church! She's correct on one point so far, and both the UK and US bishops have presented arguments for the second point to the Vatican.)

Then in post-war years Gorres found a mentor in Newman studies, Father Breucha, and she was deeply involved in the Synod of Wurzburg in 1971, collapsing after defending the Catholic doctrine and Sacrament of Marriage. I need to purchase and read her book The Church and the Flesh from Cluny Media, translated by Bryson, I suppose, to understand the context further since Newman is cited several times in that book, evidently. Bread Grows in Winter: Six Essays on the Crisis in the Church from 1970 might be helpful to me too. And her defense of Marriage at the Synod (meaning it was under attack, right?) is forthcoming from Catholic University of America Press (What Binds Marriage Forever: Reflections on the Indissolubility of Marriage), also translated by Bryson. A Letter to the Church and the response to it is also cited. Here's more about forthcoming translation of books by Gorres, etc.

So, as usual, one book leads to another, and another. For example, I'm already browsing a copy of John Henry Newman: Centenary Essays (1945), edited by Father Henry Tristram of the Oratory, highlighted in the bibliography and elsewhere in this volume as one of Gorres' sources (remember, she didn't have the newmanreader.org with almost everything Newman wrote at her fingertips!) 

Gorres succeeded remarkably well with the sources she had to present a saintly and human portrait of Newman. I recommend John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed most highly. In fact, I've already ordered two more copies from Eighth Day Books as gifts!

Belloc on Wolsey and Cranmer

Os Justi Press is carrying two books by Hilaire Belloc: Wolsey and Cranmer. They have been brought back into print by Mysterium Press in the U.K. The U.K. publisher has sent me copies of both books to read!

As the publisher describes the book about Wolsey:

In Christendom on the eve of its destruction, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was to be identified with England. In one hand was held the ropes of Church and State, and when he fell what he had made was used to destroy all that he had known. A peerless administrator who blundered abroad but remained supreme at home, Wolsey's intelligence and industry were matched by his ambition and myopia, and his inability to comprehend the inmost thoughts of man proved fatal. Master historian Hilaire Belloc paints a portrait of the low-born cleric who might have stopped the Reformation, but who in putting himself first, and distracted by the closest thing to hand, unwittingly steered England toward its ruin.
Belloc has not written biographies per se but studies about each man's role in the events of Henry VIII's reign and (in the case of Cranmer) Edward VI's.
In his study of Wolsey, for example, Belloc casts his story as a tragedy, with chapters titled The Stage, The Programme, The Plot, The Cast, and five Acts with an Interlude. Wolsey is his tragic hero with fatal flaws: lack of vision in spite of his intelligence and the "defect of ambition . . . the putting of oneself before one's chief task". (p. 3) Belloc narrates this tragic play in declarative, positive sentences even as he explains the complex and different world of Renaissance England and Europe, with the concentration of wealth, the powers of the Church, the aura of the princes, and divisions in Christendom in the background as the drama of Henry VIII's marital issues proceeded. He wants to help the reader understand "the mood" of a past era. Note that he wrote Wolsey and Cranmer in the 1930's.
Among the cast members are Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon (who possessed the courage of her mother without the astuteness of her father); Anne Boleyn, whom Belloc believes is older; Thomas Howard, the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; three popes: Leo X, Adrian VI, and Clement VII; Francis I; Charles V; Lawrence Campeggio, the Papal Legate ("that kind of many to whom all men listen with respect and whom--since the fall of man--nobody follows", p. 79); Bainbridge, Cardinal and Archbishop of York (Wolsey's predecessor) who died in 1514 so that Wolsey could succeed him in those offices; Richard Foxe of Winchester; and Thomas Cromwell, the Supplanter.
Contradicting Mantel, Belloc posits Cromwell as the cause of Wolsey's fall; Henry VIII was still concerned about Wolsey's health and well-being even as offices and wealth were being taken away from him. Belloc describes Cromwell weeping after Wolsey's fall, mourning "the loss of goods; he complained that his service to his old master had impoverished him", so he went to see Henry VIII and then "he begins to supplant his master." (p. 240) Belloc ends his examination of Cromwell's character that he ended up "by the ax and whining for life."!
Reading this review of the characters reminded me that Anna Mitchell and I did a long series in 2017/18 on Belloc's Characters of the Reformation ! 
Note that neither Thomas More nor Bishop John Fisher play any role in Belloc's telling; Belloc is more interested in Stephen Gardiner replacing Wolsey as Secretary to the King than More becoming Chancellor after his Wolsey's fall from favor (that's not even mentioned).
Belloc's Wolsey is a fascinating interpretation of the career of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, his energy, his ambition and ability, his flaws, and his ultimate tragedy: setting England on the path of separation from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. There is no index and no bibliography, because Belloc didn't provide them,  I presume. There are some notes from A to K on matters like Wolsey's and Anne Boleyn's dates of birth, prices during Wolsey's time, the Duke of Buckingham's claim to the throne and Wolsey's role in his fall and execution, etc.
Whether or not I--or you when you read the book--agree with all of Belloc's interpretation of Wolsey's years of power, we must agree Frederick Wilhelmson's commendation of Belloc's achievements:
Time prohibits my detailing Belloc’s revolution in English historical writing. Suffice it to say — and this is said formally and altogether without rhetorical emphasis — that one man, Hilaire Belloc, turned the whole writing of British history around. Since Belloc, nobody can get away with understanding the Reformation as the work of high‑minded souls bent on liberty and democracy, noble souls who brought England out of the darkness of Catholic superstition and medieval obscurantism. Others footnoted Belloc and traded on his vision. They did well in doing so, but the vision was his — as was the persecution of silence that followed on his work.
The publication of this book--and the study of Cranmer which I'll read and review next--is another step in ending "the persecution of silence". Mysterium Press hopes to publish more of the Belloc's histories. (I'd really like to read his take on James II!) The books are high quality hardcovers, with nice sturdy paper and clear typefaces.

Saint Robert Southwell's Nativity Poems

As readers of this blog know, I have posted often about Saint Robert Southwell, SJ; his life, his martyrdom, and his poetry. As the celebration of Christmas draws nearer, I'm reading some of his poems about the Nativity of Our Lord in this collection of poetry by the English Catholic martyrs of the Reformation era, from Saint Thomas More to Blessed Nicholas Postgate, with an appendix of the poetry of Catholics like Chidiock Tichborne (not a martyr but related to two Venerable martyrs, Father Thomas Tichborne and his brother Nicholas). The collection was first published in 1934, compiled by The Rev. Sir John R. O'Connell of Ireland (1868-December 28, 1943), who wrote the Preface with a Foreword by Francis Cardinal Bourne, the fourth Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. This second edition was Expanded and Revised with an Introduction by Benedict J. Whalen.

In this article from the Catholic Exchange, Louise Merrie writes about "A Martyred Saint’s Christmastime Poetry":

In his Nativity poems, Saint Robert Southwell wrote about his love for the Infant Jesus, Jesus’ love for us, and the amazing meaning of His Incarnation—even though Jesus came to us as a baby, He was still powerful because of His Divinity. This Christmas Season is an ideal time for Catholics to read Saint Robert’s poems on the Infant Jesus.

“The Burning Babe” may be Saint Robert Southwell’s most famous poem. It begins with a vision of the baby Jesus on a cold winter’s day, Christmas day. Jesus glows brightly with the warmth of His love, but crying, says, “Yet none approach to warm their hearts/Or feel my fire, but I.” Although written many years before Jesus’ revelations of His Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary, the imagery and message are similar to the Sacred Heart devotion and the words of the Litany referring to Jesus’ Sacred Heart as a “burning furnace of charity.”

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
      So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
      With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
      And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

“New Heaven, New War” is set in the stable of Bethlehem, where angels honor and care for the baby Jesus, in his new earthly home. Although seemingly helpless as a baby in His human nature, Jesus is powerful in His Divine nature, and has come to defeat the forces of evil. “This little Babe so few days old, /Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;… For in this weak unarmed wise, /The gates of hell he will surprise.”

Come to your heaven, you heavenly choirs,
Earth hath the heaven of your desires.
Remove your dwelling to your God;
A stall is now his best abode.
Sith men their homage do deny,
Come, angels, all their fault supply.

His chilling cold doth heat require;
Come, seraphins, in lieu of fire.
This little ark no cover hath;
Let cherubs’ wings his body swathe.
Come, Raphael, this babe must eat;
Provide our little Toby meat.

Let Gabriel be now his groom,
That first took up his earthly room.
Let Michael stand in his defense,
Whom love hath linked to feeble sense.
Let graces rock when he doth cry,
And angels sing his lullaby.

The same you saw in heavenly seat
Is he that now sucks Mary’s teat;
Agnize your king a mortal wight,
His borrowed weed lets not your sight.
Come, kiss the manger where he lies,
That is your bliss above the skies.

This little babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake.
Though he himself for cold do shake,
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field;
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall,
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

She also highlights this beautiful devotional poem, "A Child My Choice":
Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child
Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.

I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His;
While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss.

Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light,
To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight.

He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due;
First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true.

Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is:
As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless.

His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all;
His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall.

Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing;
Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring.

Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly,
Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
Saint Robert Southwell, pray for us!

What I'm Reading Now: "John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed"

My, I had an eventful weekend: Adoration and Mass Friday morning; our annual Chesterton Advent/Christmas party at Eighth Day Books that evening; a Shakespeare play reading Saturday night (As You Like It); the monthly Lovers of Newman reading at the local IHM Convent ("Religious Joy") and Sunday evening Mass. Plus, I have discovered Ida Friederike Görres(1901-1971), by starting John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed from Ignatius Press:

This unparalleled introduction to St. John Henry Newman—mind, heart, soul, and personality—brings the great cardinal to life before our eyes, and with him the charged air of nineteenth-century England. Drawing from his letters, writings, and journal entries with precision and poetic flair, the book is one of Ida Friederike Görres’ masterworks.

While famous for his brilliance, Cardinal Newman did not hide in an ivory tower. His life was one of risk, sacrifice, and immense charity. His sharp turn to Catholicism rocked the University of Oxford, costing him his friendships, his livelihood, and his identity. Through failures and disappointments, over and over again, Newman let himself be recreated by God.

This work, in Görres’ words, is a portrait of “the boy, puzzled, who was startled and overwhelmed by God; the active, creative young prophet of his church in crisis; the hermit, who he was and wanted to be all his life; and the fighter, who he was with and against his will: the saint of the Church and the saint of humility, the one perfected in sacrifice”.

With an in-depth introduction by Ratzinger Prize winner Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, an extensive commentary by translator Jennifer S. Bryson, and a detailed index*, the book introduces readers not only to St. John Henry Newman, but to Görres, one of the greatest hagiographers of the twentieth century, whose spiritual writings have only recently been discovered by the English-speaking world.
*plus an extensive bibliography!
I bought my copy at Eighth Day Books before we started our Chesterton party, reminiscing about our favorite Christmas memories and reading a few selections from our author! We'll continue our discussion of his Autobiography in January, 2025!
More about Gorres here.

Preview: "Shrinking from Christ's Coming" on the SRMS

Before we enter the final liturgical preparations for the Coming of Jesus as an infant in Bethlehem, the Church has us thinking about Our Lord's Second Coming. Saint John Henry Newman reflected on this theme in one of his Advent Parochial and Plain Sermons, "Shrinking from Christ's Coming" and that will be our subject on Monday, December 16 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 
(The hosts will take a well-deserved Christmas/New Year break the weeks of December 23 and 30, and we'll continue this Newman Advent/Christmas series on January 6, 2025).

But on Monday, December 16, I'll be on the air at my usual time at the top of the second national hour, about 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central. Please listen live here or catch the podcast later here.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached a famous Advent sermon commenting on the Three Comings of Christ: 

In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among men; he himself testifies that they saw him and hated him. In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.This middle coming is like a road that leads from the first coming to the last. At the first, Christ was our redemption; at the last, he will become manifest as our life; but in this middle way he is our rest and our consolation.

I have often heard Advent sermons in which the priest commented on that "intermediate coming" in different ways: comparing it to when each of us dies and sees Jesus in our particular judgment, or in the way that Saint Bernard did, as the indwelling of the Spirit of God (discussed as an influence of the Greek Fathers on Newman in a recent series), or as when we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in Holy Communion.

In this Advent PPS, Newman speaks of both that intermediate coming now and the Second Coming to come and describes how we should pray for those comings with both hopefulness and awe. The verse for this sermon is "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." Isaiah 33:17 and Newman begins with the Old Testament prophecies:

BEFORE Christ came, the faithful remnant of Israel were consoled with the promise that "their eyes should see" Him, who was to be their salvation. "For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings" (Malachi 4:2). Yet it is observable that the prophecy, though cheering and encouraging, had with it something of an awful character too. First, it was said, "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight." Yet it is soon added, "But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." (Malachi 3:1-2)

Reading those verses from Malachi immediately makes me think of Handel's Messiah (without the soap).

Newman then turns from those Old Testament prophecies to Christians now praying and waiting for Christ to return and asks: can any of us think that we are ready if He comes sooner rather than later? Are we ready for judgement?

We too are looking out for Christ's coming,—we are bid look out,—we are bid pray for it; and yet it is to be a time of judgment. It is to be the deliverance of all Saints from sin and sorrow for ever; yet they, every one of them, must undergo an awful trial. How then can any look forward to it with joy, not knowing (for no one knows) the certainty of his own salvation? And the difficulty is increased when we come to pray for it,—to pray for its coming soon: how can we pray that Christ would come, that the day of judgment would hasten, that His kingdom would come, that His kingdom may be at once,—may come on us this day or tomorrow,—when by so coming He would be shortening the time of our present life, and cut off those precious years given us for conversion, amendment, repentance and sanctification? Is there not an inconsistency in professing to wish our Judge already come, when we do not feel ourselves ready for Him? In what sense can we really and heartily pray that He would cut short the time, when our conscience tells us that, even were our life longest, we should have much to do in a few years?

And yet he reminds his congregation that while we are aware of our sinfulness and unworthiness, not just when we think about His Second Coming but whenever we pray, because, as he states "I am in myself nothing but a sinner, a man of unclean lips and earthly heart. I am not worthy to enter into His presence. I am not worthy of the least of all His mercies. I know He is All-holy, yet I come before Him .  . ." There is no one else we can go to, he says, and we have to rely on God's mercy: we know that "He is All-merciful, and that He so sincerely desires my salvation that He has died for me."

Newman offers consolation to one afraid of judgement because of her sin:

And yet there is a certain composure and dignity which become us who are born of immortal seed, when we come before our Father. If indeed we have habitually lived to the world, then truly it is natural we should attempt to fly from Him whom we have pierced. Then may we well call on the mountains to fall on us, and on the hills to cover us. But if we have lived, however imperfectly, yet habitually, in His fear, if we trust that His Spirit is in us, then we need not be ashamed before Him. We shall then come before Him, as now we come to pray—with profound abasement, with awe, with self-renunciation, still as relying upon the Spirit which He has given us, with our faculties about us, with a collected and determined mind, and with hope. He who cannot pray for Christ's coming, ought not in consistency to pray at all.

Newman does not think that we are all "sinners in the hands of an angry God"!

Finally, Newman brings up the Anglican sacrament of Holy Communion, in which he believed there was a Real Presence of Jesus (we discussed his sermon "The Eucharistic Presence" in April this year):

I have spoken of coming to God in prayer generally; but if this is awful, much more is coming to Him in the Sacrament of Holy Communion; for this is in very form an anticipation of His coming, a near presence of Him in earnest of it. They indeed who are in the religious practice of communicating, understand well enough how it is possible to feel afraid and yet to come. Surely it is possible, and the case is the same as regards the future day of Christ. You must tremble, and yet pray for it. . . . Such is the temper in which we desire to come to the Lord's table; such in which we must pray for His coming; such in which His elect will stand before Him when He comes.

Since the pontificate of Pope Saint Pius X we the laity have been encouraged to receive Holy Communion more often, even daily at Mass, but we are also encouraged to examine our consciences and prepare ourselves with Confession if we have committed Mortal Sin before receiving the Eucharist, and of course to fast and pray.  I appreciate Newman's warning not to take this privilege for granted or thoughtlessly.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!