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Pope
Benedict XVI - Homilies |
"He Lived Out a Profoundly Human Vision
of Priestly Ministry"
Homily at Beatification of Cardinal
John Henry Newman
H.H. Benedict XVI
September 19, 2010
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This day that has brought us together here
in Birmingham is a most auspicious one. In
the first place, it is the Lord’s day,
Sunday, the day when our Lord Jesus Christ
rose from the dead and changed the course of
human history for ever, offering new life
and hope to all who live in darkness and in
the shadow of death. That is why Christians
all over the world come together on this day
to give praise and thanks to God for the
great marvels he has worked for us. This
particular Sunday also marks a significant
moment in the life of the British nation, as
it is the day chosen to commemorate the
seventieth anniversary of the Battle of
Britain. For me as one who lived and
suffered through the dark days of the Nazi
regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be
here with you on this occasion, and to
recall how many of your fellow citizens
sacrificed their lives, courageously
resisting the forces of that evil ideology.
My thoughts go in particular to nearby
Coventry, which suffered such heavy
bombardment and massive loss of life in
November 1940. Seventy years later, we
recall with shame and horror the dreadful
toll of death and destruction that war
brings in its wake, and we renew our resolve
to work for peace and reconciliation
wherever the threat of conflict looms. Yet
there is another, more joyful reason why
this is an auspicious day for Great Britain,
for the Midlands, for Birmingham. It is the
day that sees Cardinal John Henry Newman
formally raised to the altars and declared
Blessed.
I thank Archbishop Bernard Longley for his
gracious welcome at the start of Mass this
morning. I pay tribute to all who have
worked so hard over many years to promote
the cause of Cardinal Newman, including the
Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory and the
members of the Spiritual Family Das Werk.
And I greet everyone here from Great
Britain, Ireland, and further afield; I
thank you for your presence at this
celebration, in which we give glory and
praise to God for the heroic virtue of a
saintly Englishman.
England has a long tradition of martyr
saints, whose courageous witness has
sustained and inspired the Catholic
community here for centuries. Yet it is
right and fitting that we should recognize
today the holiness of a confessor, a son of
this nation who, while not called to shed
his blood for the Lord, nevertheless bore
eloquent witness to him in the course of a
long life devoted to the priestly ministry,
and especially to preaching, teaching, and
writing. He is worthy to take his place in a
long line of saints and scholars from these
islands, Saint Bede, Saint Hilda, Saint
Aelred, Blessed Duns Scotus, to name but a
few. In Blessed John Henry, that tradition
of gentle scholarship, deep human wisdom and
profound love for the Lord has borne rich
fruit, as a sign of the abiding presence of
the Holy Spirit deep within the heart of
God’s people, bringing forth abundant gifts
of holiness.
Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur,
or "Heart speaks unto heart", gives us an
insight into his understanding of the
Christian life as a call to holiness,
experienced as the profound desire of the
human heart to enter into intimate communion
with the Heart of God. He reminds us that
faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms
us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in
one of his many fine sermons, "a habit of
prayer, the practice of turning to God and
the unseen world in every season, in every
place, in every emergency – prayer, I say,
has what may be called a natural effect in
spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man
is no longer what he was before; gradually …
he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and
become imbued with fresh principles"
(Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv, 230-231).
Today’s Gospel tells us that no one can be
the servant of two masters (cf. Lk 16:13),
and Blessed John Henry’s teaching on prayer
explains how the faithful Christian is
definitively taken into the service of the
one true Master, who alone has a claim to
our unconditional devotion (cf. Mt 23:10).
Newman helps us to understand what this
means for our daily lives: he tells us that
our divine Master has assigned a specific
task to each one of us, a "definite
service", committed uniquely to every single
person: "I have my mission", he wrote, "I am
a link in a chain, a bond of connexion
between persons. He has not created me for
naught. I shall do good, I shall do his
work; I shall be an angel of peace, a
preacher of truth in my own place … if I do
but keep his commandments and serve him in
my calling" (Meditations and Devotions,
301-2).
The definite service to which Blessed John
Henry was called involved applying his keen
intellect and his prolific pen to many of
the most pressing "subjects of the day". His
insights into the relationship between faith
and reason, into the vital place of revealed
religion in civilized society, and into the
need for a broadly-based and wide-ranging
approach to education were not only of
profound importance for Victorian England,
but continue today to inspire and enlighten
many all over the world. I would like to pay
particular tribute to his vision for
education, which has done so much to shape
the ethos that is the driving force behind
Catholic schools and colleges today. Firmly
opposed to any reductive or utilitarian
approach, he sought to achieve an
educational environment in which
intellectual training, moral discipline and
religious commitment would come together.
The project to found a Catholic University
in Ireland provided him with an opportunity
to develop his ideas on the subject, and the
collection of discourses that he published
as The Idea of a University holds up an
ideal from which all those engaged in
academic formation can continue to learn.
And indeed, what better goal could teachers
of religion set themselves than Blessed John
Henry’s famous appeal for an intelligent,
well-instructed laity: "I want a laity, not
arrogant, not rash in speech, not
disputatious, but men who know their
religion, who enter into it, who know just
where they stand, who know what they hold
and what they do not, who know their creed
so well that they can give an account of it,
who know so much of history that they can
defend it" (The Present Position of
Catholics in England, ix, 390). On this day
when the author of those words is raised to
the altars, I pray that, through his
intercession and example, all who are
engaged in the task of teaching and
catechesis will be inspired to greater
effort by the vision he so clearly sets
before us.
While it is John Henry Newman’s intellectual
legacy that has understandably received most
attention in the vast literature devoted to
his life and work, I prefer on this occasion
to conclude with a brief reflection on his
life as a priest, a pastor of souls. The
warmth and humanity underlying his
appreciation of the pastoral ministry is
beautifully expressed in another of his
famous sermons: "Had Angels been your
priests, my brethren, they could not have
condoled with you, sympathized with you,
have had compassion on you, felt tenderly
for you, and made allowances for you, as we
can; they could not have been your patterns
and guides, and have led you on from your
old selves into a new life, as they can who
come from the midst of you" ("Men, not
Angels: the Priests of the Gospel",
Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 3). He
lived out that profoundly human vision of
priestly ministry in his devoted care for
the people of Birmingham during the years
that he spent at the Oratory he founded,
visiting the sick and the poor, comforting
the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No
wonder that on his death so many thousands
of people lined the local streets as his
body was taken to its place of burial not
half a mile from here. One hundred and
twenty years later, great crowds have
assembled once again to rejoice in the
Church’s solemn recognition of the
outstanding holiness of this much-loved
father of souls. What better way to express
the joy of this moment than by turning to
our heavenly Father in heartfelt
thanksgiving, praying in the words that
Blessed John Henry Newman placed on the lips
of the choirs of angels in heaven:
Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise;
In all his words most wonderful,
Most sure in all his ways!
(The Dream of Gerontius).
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