Tag Archives: Blessed John Henry Newman

A Continuing Pilgrimage

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It's always wonderful news when we read of another group of Anglicans entering into full Catholic communion. But let's remember that there are countless small communities of Anglicans which are at various stages and different points along the path to Catholic communion. The road home is longer and more difficult for some than it is for others, but let's pray for all those pilgrims who, by the grace of God, are travelling in faith toward that precious destination for which they yearn.

The Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship in Philadelphia is one such group, and it's well worth checking their website regularly for the latest news, or for an inspiring sermon.

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A Sermon preached by Bishop David Moyer on the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 19, 2012, at the Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship in Philadelphia.

+In the Name…

From our first reading from the Revelation of St. John the Divine: “And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and her head a crown of twelve stars…” (12:1).

Today we honor the Mother of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we keep the Solemnity of the Feast of the Assumption. The Assumption of the body and soul of Mary was a belief of the Church in many quarters of the East and West for centuries before it was finally declared as a dogma by the Catholic Church, Munificentissimus Deus, in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.

The Eastern Church’s theological way is that it doesn’t define things as specifically as the Western Church does. The East uses the Greek word Koimesis, which speaks of The Blessed Virgin’s “falling asleep” – implying something very different for her.

We as the Newman Fellowship have been on a pilgrimage of prayer and study as we embrace the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in the way the Traditional Anglican Communion’s College of Bishops stated it in their 2007 Petition to the Holy See, as “the most complete and authentic expression and application of the catholic faith in this moment of time….the faith we aspire to teach and hold.”

This has been and remains the trajectory for us in the Newman Fellowship; and we believe it is of God for the greater unity of the Church, as our Lord prayed. We long to move forward as a community into the Catholic Church with our Anglican heritage as God navigates us through the rough and dark waters of ill-will, false information, and misunderstanding which seek to prevent us from such a good thing. The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus means, “for groups or communities of Anglicans.” Our unity here as a community of men, women, and children is something that we cherish because it is of God’s initiative. He knows what He is about, as Blessed John Henry Newman stated, so we trust in Him.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts before so many things in so many areas which comprise the fullness of the Church’s teachings. There are portions of it that immediately resonate with us, and for which we are glad in the way that such portions are expressed with such strength and clarity. But there are portions of it with which we struggle, especially from an Anglican perspective, where we have traditionally looked to the Scriptures for assurance that what is set forth is rooted in the Scriptures.

But, as we discussed in our Catechism classes, this can lead us to see different things in the Scriptures from one person to another, or to interpret the Scriptures from a certain individual or group perspective and bias.

Look, as you need not be reminded, to the plentitude of Christian churches and denominations in our country– each with a high degree of confidence that they’ve got it right!

The Catholic Church understands herself as the true Church under the Successor of St. Peter and the bishops in communion with him. It sees the Church’s vocation as that of bringing about unity of faith and belief as historic dissensions and points of separation are healed. The Catholic Church offers to the world the presentation of the Gospel and the religion of it with serious conviction, clarity, and authority through the Magisterium. Again, we have seen what happens to the Church without or a neglect of her teaching authority. We have seen fashion, fad, novelty, and ideology come into churches as the Zeitgeist (the spirit of the age) blows through the ranks of clergy and lay.

Yes, the Catholic Church has and has had major problems, but the Faith that is taught amidst the sins of man has not been compromised or diluted because of the sins of man. This is a testimony of the work of the Holy Spirit.

The late Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, in his final book, Magisterium, wrote the following, first quoting from Vatican II: “…sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church, in accordance with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls” (Dei Verbum 10).

He further writes: “Just as the Christians of the first generation had to rely on the word of the Apostles and their fellow workers, so Christians of later generations must continue to rely on the living authority of those who succeed to the place of the Apostles…Faith is never the mere self-assertion of believers but an acceptance by them of something received from others – in the last analysis from God” (p. 5).

So the Catholic Church through its Magisterium teaches that the Virgin Mary at the time of her death was taken up into heaven, as Elijah was in the sight of his successor Elisha. This is something that for many is hard to wrap one’s mind around, so let me very briefly take you to Blessed John Henry Newman for some theological assistance – he who made the spiritual and theological journey to belief in and defense of the Assumption; from skepticism to commitment and subjection to what the Catholic Church taught, well before it was set forth as dogmatic.

Newman wrote: “…if her body was not taken into heaven, where is it? How comes it that it is hidden from us? Why do we not hear of her tomb as being here or there? Why are not pilgrimages made to it? Why are not relics producible of her, as of the saints in general? Is it not even a natural instinct which makes us reverent towards the places where our dear are buried?”

Newman takes us to the Book of Genesis. He writes: “Adam and Eve were created upright and sinless, and had a large measure of God’s grace bestowed upon them, and, in consequence, their bodies would never have crumbled into dust, had they not sinned; upon which it was said to them, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.’ If Eve, the beautiful daughter of God, never would have become dust and ashes unless she had sinned, shall we not say that Mary, having never sinned, retained the gift which Eve by sinning lost? What had Mary done to forfeit the privilege given to our first parents in the beginning? Was her comeliness to be turned into corruption, and her fine gold to become dim, without reason assigned? Impossible. Therefore we believe that, though she died for a short time, as did our Lord Himself, yet, like Him, and by His Almighty power, she was raised again from the grave.”

He then points to the Gospel of St. Matthew’s testimony of the Resurrection of Christ in which we read, “the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, and coming out of the tombs after His Resurrection, came into the Holy City, and appeared to many.”

He says that such bodies were those of the holy Prophets, Priests, and Kings of former times, and then writes:

Can we suppose that Abraham, or David, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel, should have been favoured, and not God’s own mother? Had she not a claim on the love of her Son to have what any others had? Was she not nearer to Him than the greatest of the Saints before her? And is it conceivable that the law of the grave should admit of relaxation in their case, and not in hers? Therefore we confidently say that our Lord, having preserved her from sin and the consequences of sin by His Passion, lost no time in pouring out the full merits of that Passion upon her body as well as her soul” (the quotes are from Meditations and Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman).

So may we in our worship, prayers, and study remain open. Openness is a hard journey because it may usher into our minds and hearts things we never expected, as it did for Blessed John Henry Newman.

Not to be open to new insights and theological understanding is an act of pride, and sometimes may be an act of prejudice. God spare any and all from that!

So today we join with over a billion Christians to praise God the Holy Trinity for the gift of Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, who, in giving herself to the will by God became the Mother of God Incarnate. In so doing, she found great sorrow, but even a greater reward in being taken up into the glory of Heaven to be with Her Son as a sign of what awaits us who say as she did, “Be it unto me according to thy Word.”

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Newman's Bottom Line

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Newman26 263x300 Newmans Bottom LineI was browsing through the blog Rorate Caeli, and saw this excerpt from Blessed John Henry Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. It reminded me of just how straightforward the blessed Cardinal could be. Of course, the "money quote" is when he writes, "…to believe in a Church, is to believe in the Pope."

Isn't that really the bottom line? Taking off on the old line, "I've been rich, I've been poor; rich is better," I've tried non-papal Christianity and now I've been a Catholic for some thirty years. When I came into full communion with the Successor of St. Peter, it was like escaping from a dysfunctional family. I can't imagine trying to live the fullness of the Faith in any other way. I found that Newman's words ring true, and so wanted to share them here.

I say the Pope is the heir of the Ecumenical Hierarchy of the fourth century, as being, what I may call, heir by default. No one else claims or exercises its rights or its duties. Is it possible to consider the Patriarch of Moscow or of Constantinople, heir to the historical pretensions of St. Ambrose or St. Martin? Does any Anglican Bishop for the last 300 years recall to our minds the image of St. Basil? Well, then, has all that ecclesiastical power, which makes such a show in the Christian Empire, simply vanished, or, if not, where is it to be found?

I wish Protestants would throw themselves into our minds upon this point; I am not holding an argument with them; I am only wishing them to understand where we stand and how we look at things. There is this great difference of belief between us and them: they do not believe that Christ set up a visible society, or rather kingdom, for the propagation and maintenance of His religion, for a necessary home and a refuge for His people; but we do.

We know the kingdom is still on earth: where is it? If all that can be found of it is what can be discerned at Constantinople or Canterbury, I say, it has disappeared; and either there was a radical corruption of Christianity from the first, or Christianity came to an end, in proportion as the type of the Nicene Church faded out of the world: for all that we know of Christianity, in ancient history, as a concrete fact, is the Church of Athanasius and his fellow Bishops: it is nothing else historically but that bundle of phenomena, that combination of claims, prerogatives, and corresponding acts, some of which I have recounted above. There is no help for it then; we cannot take as much as we please, and no more, of an institution which has a monadic existence. We must either give up the belief in the Church as a divine institution altogether, or we must recognize it at this day in that communion of which the Pope is the head. With him alone and round about him are found the claims, the prerogatives, and duties which we identify with the kingdom set up by Christ. We must take things as they are; to believe in a Church, is to believe in the Pope.

And thus this belief in the Pope and his attributes, which seems so monstrous to Protestants, is bound up with our being Catholics at all; as our Catholicism is bound up with our Christianity. There is nothing then of wanton opposition to the powers that be, no dinning of novelties in their startled ears in what is often unjustly called Ultramontane doctrine; there is no pernicious servility to the Pope in our admission of his pretensions.

Actually, the whole letter is well worth reading. In our own day, we tend to think of letters as being somewhat more brief — usually in email form — and this is a long letter. Blessed John Henry Newman isn't always easy to read, but it's almost always worth the effort. In fact, his complete works can be accessed here.

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Msgr. Steenson's Homily at the Ordination of Fr. Andrew Bartus

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I've been doing a lot of virtual traveling via Google Earth in Southern California as I will be staying for a week later this month with family a few miles south of Oceanside where there is a new Anglican Use Catholic community, St. Augustine of Canterbury.  Hmm.  Can I make it to Mass with them while I'm in the area?

Here's an excerpt of a news story about the reception of this group and that of the Blessed Henry Newman fellowship of Santa Ana yesterday.  Follow the link for some great pictures.

 

The Anglican churches, Blessed John Henry Newman of Santa Ana and Vista-based Saint Augustine of Canterbury, are now organized in “ordinariates,” geographic regions similar to a Catholic diocese.

In addition, Anglican priest Andrew Bartus was officially ordained as a Catholic priest Tuesday, even though he is married and has a child. Like others joining the Catholic Church across the nation, his congregation will maintain distinctive elements of Anglican practices.

All told, about 70 members of both congregations were confirmed as Catholics at the ceremony.

“What a joy it is for me to be a part of this holy work today," Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson told the crowd. Referring to the New Testament's book of Ephesians, he said the newcomers were “no longer sojourners or travelers … you are citizens, like all the saints, members of God’s household.”

In the audience, Fred and Barbara Wood of Oceanside said they couldn’t wait for the times to catch up to them. They recently left the Episcopal Church earlier – where Fred was a deacon – and joined St. Margaret, a Catholic parish in Oceanside. They made the trip to San Juan because they knew many of the newly confirmed and wanted to show their support, they said.

With everyone together again, it felt “absolutely” like home, Fred Wood said.

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI paved the way for reunification with willing Episcopalians. The U.S. Ordinariates were formed at the beginning of the year, and Tuesday’s Mass was the first of its kind for Orange and San Diego counties.

Although the media have reported conservative Episcopalians are joining Catholics as a response to liberal policies, such as allowing gay bishops and female priests, there was no talk of such issues at Mission Basilica on Tuesday.

Here is Msgr. Steenson's homily at the event, including the ordination of Fr. Andrew Bartus yesterday.

July 3, 2012: Msgr. Steenson's Homily at California Ordination and Reception

Becoming Men and Women of Communion

Thank you to Bishop Brown and Bishop Flores for your presence and support, as our brothers and sisters are brought into full communion through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and as Deacon Andrew Bartus is ordained to the sacred order of priest.  The Ordinariate depends on these collegial relationships with the local diocese, and I thank you all for your enthusiastic support for this work, so close to the heart of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.

Perhaps you will allow me to take a moment to breath deeply the air of this holy place.  One weekday morning some 20 years ago, I came from a nearby conference and sat quietly in this place to pray.  The breezes were blowing through the windows, the birds were singing, and I asked Fr. Junipero Serra for a prayer.  I was struggling with a vocational decision, whether to stand for an ecclesial office in the Episcopal Church.  It would have meant years of conflict in an ecclesial community undergoing profound changes.  And the answer that I was given here that day?  Be careful to do nothing that might take you further away from full communion with the Catholic Church.  You want this mission church to be your church: to be incorporated in its faith and life.  I cannot begin to tell you what a joy it is for me to be a part of this holy work today.

On this feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, who carried the Gospel to lands far off, as blessed Junipero Serra did here, this desire for authentic apostolic life continues to move the hearts of Christian people.  For those who are not in communion with the Catholic Church, this desire for apostolicity is certainly present as well — it just needs to be awakened and nurtured.  This important element in the mission of the Ordinariate is part of Pope Benedict's vision for the new evangelization.

Continue reading →

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Newman's Failures

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Newman4 Newmans FailuresWhen you become a Catholic, it may be that Mother Church gives you a spanking.  That is to say, you may find things difficult and not to your liking.  Many converts discover that things do not go their way.  They are disappointed and let down.  They are unappreciated.  The church is bigger and stranger and tougher than they thought.

If so, don't be discouraged.  It was so with the great Cardinal Newman.  Everything he tried to do was undermined or misunderstood.  He was suspected and ostracized and pushed to one side.

Father Peter Cornwell is an English Catholic priest who was once the vicar of the University Church in Oxford, as was Newman.  He writes here of Newman's struggles.

So if you are in a similar situation, and the Catholic Church doesn't give you all the love you thought you deserved, take heart.  If things are difficult and you feel 'far from home', dig out your hymnal and sing Newman's hymn Lead Kindly Light in a loud and hearty voice.  If the Catholic Church is not all that you wanted it to be, stop and ask yourself…

What did you want anyway — a bed of roses or a Crown of Thorns?

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Symposium on the Feast of Blessed John Henry Newman

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On Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 3 p.m. the Anglican Use Congregation of St. Athanasius and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston will be sponsoring a symposium on the feast of Blessed John Henry Newman at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

The speakers for the symposium are:

Dr. Peter Kreeft on Newman as poet
Dr. Philip Crotty on Newman as educator
Dr. William Fahey on Newman as preacher
Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas on Newman as convert.

Both Dr. Kreeft and Fr. Stravinskas are well known authors and editors. Fr. Stravinskas' publishing house, Newman Press, is the publisher of the Book of Divine Worship. Dr. Fahey is president of Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and formerly a professor at Christendom College in Fort Royal, Virginia. Dr. Crotty is on the Board of Directors of Christendom College, and an adjunct faculty member of St. John Seminary in Boston. Both Drs. Kreeft and Crotty are regular communicants of St. Athanasius.

Following the symposium there will be a reception, to be followed by Evensong in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Cathedral at 5:00 pm.

The Cathedral of the Holy Cross is located on Washington St. in Boston's South End. Parking is located behind the Cathedral in a lot off of Harrison Avenue, as well as on street parking. For access via public transportation, take the T to the Tufts Medical Center Orange Line stop, then take the Silver Line toward Roxbury and get off in front of the Cathedral.

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An Old/New Community, Ordinariate-Bound!

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Christ our Good Shepherd has entrusted some of His faithful childen to the particular spiritual care of Blessed John Henry Newman, with the organization of a community dedicated to the beatified convert and cardinal.

Comprised of people who were part of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, the Fellowship of Blessed John Henry Newman, under the leadership of Bishop David Moyer, is an Ordinariate-bound community of Anglicans, and they will celebrate their inaugural Mass this Sunday, September 4th, at 10 a.m. The location and other details can be found at the website, and if you are in the Philadelphia area, you would be most welcome.

Please pray for Bishop Moyer and the members of the Fellowship as they prepare to take their place in the U. S. Ordinariate as soon as it is established.

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Words from Blessed John Henry Newman

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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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The Blessed John Henry Newman Society

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Fr. Andrew Bartus of our sister site, Anglican Patrimony, writes to share the news of the new Anglican Use Society in Orange County, California.

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Of your charity, please pray for our new Anglican Use Society in Orange County, California, now so named, Blessed John Henry Newman Society. This is a community of about thirty people so far — seventeen of which will be entering the Ordinariate when it is erected here in the United States, and others who will be coming in at a later time or regularly worshipping with us. This is a new congregation in formation, which will, Lord willing (and the world doesn't end on October 21), form into a parish of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Catholic Church.

We will have our first meeting this Sunday evening at 6:00 PM, with Evensong, a Marian procession and intercessions commemorating Mary's Month (squeezing it in just in time!), and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Afterward, we will have refreshments — if not a proper bun fight à la Fr Barnes! — and I'll give a brief outline of where we are headed as a group in the next couple of months, and our organist/choir master will do the same for her vision of the music.

This project started off rather accidentally; a request from someone to get a support group going for former Anglicans in Orange County has now turned into a full-on movement to build a parish from scratch! This is very much a trial-by-fire thing, where I am learning as I go, but have found it very rewarding. There is a good group of very devoted and passionate people there who are dependable, committed, and excited about this. Many of them have prayed for something like this for years, it turns out! Everyone is giving it their all, which is why it's working. God's grace and providence over this whole endeavor clarifies that this is indeed what he is directing. What this will look like in a year's time no one knows, but considering the folks involved, I imagine the best possible outcome will occur. Hopefully, sometime in the not too distant future, we will be a growing parish of the Anglican Ordinariate called, Blessed (or Saint!) John Henry Newman Catholic Church!

Please pray for us as our first meeting is this Sunday, and we will begin to meet weekly on the Sunday evenings following, until the erection of the Ordinariate and the reception of everyone into the Church occurs. When the time comes when we can be self-sustaining — and who knows when that will be! — we will petition to become a proper parish of the Ordinariate. I don't doubt God's hand in this, because it's one of those projects where amazingly all of the right doors have opened at just the right time, and often completely unexpectedly, or if prayed about, the answer given greatly exceeded our requests! I'm really at a loss for words about how to properly describe it all so far, but alas, I must, as I have a homily to prepare for our first Evensong this Sunday!

Blessed John Henry Newman, ora pro nobis!

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Blessed John Henry Newman Shrine

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Nearly completed is the Shrine of Blessed John Henry Newman, which has been installed in the baptistry of Our Lady of the Atonement Church in San Antonio, Texas. Many of those who attended the first "Becoming One" Gathering saw the partially-finished painting and contributed towards the cost of the shrine in thanksgiving for Anglicanorum coetibus. The painting was done by Leo Garza, a local San Antonio artist, and the shrine itself was built by Shayne Bernier, both members of Our Lady of the Atonement.

Pictures Fr. Phillips 251 768x1024 Blessed John Henry Newman Shrine

Pictures Fr. Phillips 253 768x1024 Blessed John Henry Newman Shrine

The shrine should be completely finished within a matter of weeks, when it will then be blessed. Prayers will be offered daily for those who are entering full communion through an Ordinariate.

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