Newman

Today Pope Benedict XVI beatified John Henry Cardinal Newman, one of my heroes.  A formative period in my life was during the 1990-91 academic year which I spent at Oxford, and among other things I studied the Oxford Movement in which Newman was a prime mover.  What impressed me then–and what still moves me today–is the fact that he managed to balance a deep reverence for the life of the mind while also remaining deeply rooted in faith.

I was a member of Oxford’s Newman Society, which gathered regularly to discuss matters related to the interface of faith and reason.  (Jesuit connection: one of its founding members was Gerard Manley Hopkins.)  Today, as many know, Newman’s name is on many college and university Catholic centers; the first was at the University of Pennsylvania as early as 1893, just two years after his death.  Newman’s connection to higher education is clear, but perhaps even more moving to me is his witness as a man of faith struggling at all cost to live with integrity and great love.  His own faith journey led him away from a prestigious position at Oriel College, Oxford and the University lectures at St. Mary’s Church into the Catholic fold, a move which alienated him from dear friends and colleagues.  He was attacked in print and found himself in the position of having to write a defense: Apologia Pro Vita Sua, a moving read even today.

Newman is a model of discernment.  I offer the following prayer, which Pope Benedict excerpted in his Beatification mass homily.  It strikes me as deeply resonant with Ignatian spirituality.

God Has created me to do some definite service.

God has committed some work to me

which God has not committed to another.

I have my mission.

I may never know it in this life

but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain,

A bond of connection between persons.

God has not created me for naught.

I shall do good—I shall do God’s 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 the commandments.

Therefore I will trust God

whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.

If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve God.

In perplexity, my perplexity may serve God

If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve God.

God does nothing in vain.

God knows what God is about.

God may take away my friends.

God may throw me among strangers.

God may make me feel desolate

make my spirits sink

hide my future from me—still

God knows what God is about.

(Prayer adapted from a version on the Penn State Erie Catholic Campus Ministry.)