Preached by the Father at the Solemn Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated by His Eminence, Cardinal Nichols at the London Oratory on Thursday, 17 October. Divine providence helped John Henry Newman to follow Saint Philip's Neri's admonition to those who wished to become holy: be humble and stay low. After The Parting of Friends in 1843, Mr Newman was no [...]
None of us has any doubt that the canonization of John Henry Newman is going to bring manifold graces to the universal Church. Once he is declared a saint he no longer belongs exclusively to the Oratories he founded in England. Saints belong to the whole Church. Saints are canonized for the good of the whole Church. I am certain [...]
"As time goes on, and Easter draws nearer, we are called upon not only to mourn over our sins, but especially over the various sufferings which Christ our Lord and Saviour underwent on account of them. Why is it, my brethren, that we have so little feeling on the matter as we commonly have? Why is it that we [...]
“And so in religion, we have need to watch against that narrowness of mind, to which we are tempted by the uniformity and tranquillity of God’s providence towards us. We should be on our guard lest we suppose ourselves to have such a clear knowledge of God’s ways, as to rely implicitly on our own notions and feelings. Men [...]
“A great number of men live and die without reflecting at all upon the state of things in which they find themselves. They take things as they come, and follow their inclinations as far as they have the opportunity. They are guided mainly by pleasure and pain, not by reason, principle, or conscience; and they do not attempt to interpret [...]
“It is by the power of God's grace that from this barren and desolate earth there have ever sprung up at all flowers of holiness and glory. And Mary is the Queen of them. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful. But [...]
"As the solemn days proceed, we shall be especially called on, my brethren, to consider His sufferings in the body, His seizure, His forced journeyings to and fro, His blows and wounds, His scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails, the Cross. They are all summed up in the Crucifix itself, as it meets our eyes; they are represented all [...]
MY oldest friend, mine from the hour When first I drew my breath; My faithful friend, that shall be mine, Unfailing, till my death; Thou hast been ever at my side; My Maker to thy trust Consign'd my soul, what time He framed The infant child of dust. No beating heart in holy prayer, [...]
John Henry Newman referred to the day on which he became a Catholic, 9th October 1845, as simply, “my day”. In his early evangelical days he thought that the Church of Rome had added to the original deposit of faith. “Now I come to two other works, which produced a deep impression on me in the same Autumn of 1816, when [...]