I keep on my desk a dog-eared copy of Cardinal Newman's Apologia pro vita sua, one that I have had since my undergraduate days, and which I can remember pouring over as a young man. Why I didn't, at the time, follow the path he set out in this account of his own spiritual journey, I cannot say. All I know is that this copy of the Apologia stayed close at hand all the way through my college years. It was packed and taken to England when we moved there, and it came back with us when we returned. It has brief notations on the flyleaf, outlining my own progress. "I, too am following the steps of Cardinal Newman — I left the Episcopal Church on 12th January 1982," I recorded. "I was made deacon in the Catholic Church on Aug. 7, 1983," was what I wrote next. "Ordained Priest — August 15, 1983," which is followed by "ad Jesum per Mariam."
I imagine my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will find my brief scratchings to be of interest when they're packing the old man's books away. I wish it could be possible to express to them the wonder I felt as the Cardinal's words became clearer to me, and that they could sense the marvel I had in my heart as I made the notations concerning my Catholic ordination. I hope one of them will decide to save it from the indignity of being stored away, and instead will keep it at hand to browse through from time to time. For me, it has been a life-changing book, and it gives me such pleasure to look across my desk and see it there — a reminder of what has been (and continues to be) a most astonishing spiritual journey.
Here's a brief passage from Blessed John Henry Newman's Apologia, chapter 5:
FROM the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.
Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.
Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us.
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This wonderful passage reminds me of Christ's calming words that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. Cardinal Newman found it to be true, "like coming into port after a rough sea".
There is such glorious Truth and symmetry in Christ's teachings, which puts an agitated mind and spirit aright. With a little help from the rules of inference, one teaching so beautifully flows into another. For example:
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
can be rephrased into:
“For what loss will it be to a man if he forfeit the whole world, but keep his soul?”
which then brings us close to:
"And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell".
Likewise, His teachings about the dens of foxes, or the saltiness of salt, to mention a couple, do indeed bring us into a "port after a rough sea". That logic, and the Truth that it expresses, when glimpsed, brings peace.
I wonder what you poured over your copy of the Apologia.
Tears, mostly.