Feast of St John Henry Newman

I was taken completely off guard by a particularly powerful piece of writing by Lytton Strachey once. It gave new meaning to the word "cost". The cost of discipleship. And the cost was being paid by John Henry Newman.

The setting is a little town in England called Littlemore. The Curate of the town was taking a walk about the parish.

"As he was passing by the Church he noticed an old man, very poorly dressed in an old grey coat with the collar turned up, leaning over the lych gate, in floods of tears. He was apparently in great trouble, and his hat was pulled down over his eyes, as if he wished to hide his features. For a moment, however, he turned towards the Curate, who was suddenly struck by something familiar in the face. Could it be? A photograph hung over the Curate's mantelpiece of the man who had made Littlemore famous by his sojourn there more than twenty years ago;he had never seen the original: but now, was it possible? He looked again, and he could doubt no longer. It was Dr. Newman."

The curate helplessly asked if he could be of help in Dr. Newman's distress. and Newman just kept repeating, "Oh no, no, no. No."

I had never heard this story before, and it stayed with me all day. The cost he paid for becoming Catholic.

Newman was a scholar. Sensitive. Poetic. Loving beauty in all things. He was not one ounce the stuff of politicians or men of the world. He was long, thin, and somewhat delicate. He walked the halls of Oxford and fit there. He had a fine and honest mind - that honesty was to lead him to the cross. It occurs to me that he could have just lied to himself a bit and remained an Anglican priest. He would have enjoyed the honor of his fellows and their company. He would have been among his own - who might disagree with him vehemently, but would still listen to his thoughts as a fellow intellectual and Englishman. Newman was always free to talk when he lived in Oxford. And people listened carefully. He knew love there.

For all his amazing gifts of intellect, he had an almost surprising and childlike love for the the smallest things of faith. The physical reminders. He loved relics, the glow of vestments and candlelight. He loved the saint stories. He loved the prayers in the beautiful English texts. He loved all the smaller trappings that we love about the Catholic faith. The small but important trappings the Oxford movement had taken up again.

When his honesty could no longer hold up the Anglican beliefs, he at last, after a long intellectual battle with himself, received the yoke of Rome upon his shoulders. He envisioned a warm and joyous welcome after this arduous journey. But it was to always be a yoke. His English friends could take much from him, but this was not the be borne. He was Poped and a wall went up between them. He knew this would happen.

He was called to Rome and there he had to live among the Roman Curia - who were very much like the men of Parliament - only dressed in Scarlet and purple. There were secretaries and under secretaries pulling strings and joining in intrigue. There were silent alliances made to secure plum jobs. There was preening and envy and status and social climbing...like now. Newman became a stranger in a strange land - all his happy expectations slowly and painfully dashed by reality. Curial Rome was a land he never quite understood in its everyday, worldliness - up against his long time dreams of the true Church of Christ being a shining city on a hill - though he knew by faith he had to accept the truth he had so painfully searched for and found within its walls.

Was he ever tempted to think he had made a huge mistake? What a heartbreak for him. But he was so faithful. So faithful.

The Catholic Curia knew he was a prize. But once they won him he was forgotten. He was not savy and virile and politically astute as was His fellow Englishman Cardinal Manning who knew how to play the Curia game. The Mannings of the world make my blood boil, alas.

Newman was too full of questions. He did not ever acquire, "the Catholic instincts". He had the ear of the laity, which was always dangerous. He was too dreamy, poetic, delicate - too foreignly Oxford. And so he was always put off, looked over, and forgotten.

He tried to serve the Church in so many ways. But just when he was about to succeed, all his plans and efforts would be pulled out from under him by behind the scene machinations of suspicious and envious Cardinals, most of all Manning. Newman knew what they did and it broke his heart. There was never an apology - ever. Over and over again.

He felt a complete and utter failure all his Catholic life. He had small successes with his books, especially among the English Catholics of the time. But the success was short lived. He would be suddenly and vaguely accused of heresy where there was none. This broke his honest heart. When he tried to start a Catholic center near Oxford it looked like at last he would succeed, but at the last minute the center was allowed but mysteriously he was not allowed to dwell there in any capacity. His efforts would go to the glory of someone else.

I am not sure when the curate found him sobbing by the gate hidden under a hat as not to give scandal by his overwhelming sorrow. But the curate knew his face. And loved him. He was sobbing so uncontrollably and yet knew that the curate could help him in no way possible. He was a man of sorrows. These were tears for God alone.

I found it so poignant that he was sobbing at the very place he had preached his last Anglican sermon when he said good-bye to all his dearest friends and set his face like flint for Rome. His sermon was titled: The Parting of Friends. And indeed it was.

Newman lived in a lonely no man's land. He was hated by the Anglicans and suspected by the Roman Curia as still one of those “English” upstarts. He was very much alone with God in the desert. What a saint he must have been!

The tears of saints. How many have they shed in order to say yes to God. It gives you pause. It brings greater weight to the words: "Lead Kindly Light.....encircling gloom….the night is dark...and I am far from home.

He received the hat of a Cardinal in the end as a very old man. Pope Leo XIII conferred it at the suggestion of the Duke of Norfolk who had always loved and respected Newman. Pope Leo XIII loved him as well. This brought a comfort to his soul. That the Catholic Church had accepted him at last within its full embrace.

I do not feel inclined at this time to have a paid substack. But if we were together in a cafe discussing all these thoughts, I would not be opposed to you buying me a cup of coffee - with cream, of course. In that spirit, if any of my posts resonate with you and you feel so inclined, you can donate here: buymeacoffee.com/denise_trull