Unexpected Encounters with John Cardinal Newman

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom…
The night is dark, and I am far from home…
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
– St. John Cardinal Newman, Lead Kindly Light

It was a late Friday afternoon when we made a touch down at London Heathrow, just one of six international airports serving the London region, it is the closest international airport to Oxford. In my last article in DCH, I have mentioned my visiting Oxford in June of 2019 to present a paper in the international conference Memory of Place, the Place of Memory. This conference was scheduled to begin early the following morning, a Saturday, and end late Sunday afternoon. I saw the need then to plot my area and mark the location of the nearest or at least most accessible church for Sunday mass either from my hotel or conference venue; and my finding one midway came with much delight.

I heart skipped when I read something unexpected on a signage at the entrance of The Oratory of St. Alphonsus, “Where Cardinal Newman preached… and JRR Tolkien worshipped.”

Saint John Cardinal Newman is the fifth saint of the City of London, behind Thomas Becket, Thomas More, Edmund Campion, and Polydore Plasden. When Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in 2010, he noted Newman’s emphasis on the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society, but also praised his pastoral zeal for the sick, the poor, the bereaved, and those in prison. Pope Francis canonized him in October 2019, his liturgical feast celebrated every October 9.

Being in a predominantly Anglican environment, Newman lived a relatively quiet life, until he and the world were startled when Leo XIII made him a Cardinal. His thought had been more influential than realized by many, for it was his theology of the development of doctrine that made it possible for Pius IX to define the Immaculate Conception in 1854.

Newman’s legacy also includes the call to permeate every aspect of human learning with faith, as he wrote extensively on the unity of Science and Religion, as well as, Reason and Faith, so that our century may avoid the mistakes of the last.

The task ahead for those of us who respond to this call, is far from easy as the scope of the task is immense. But this call is not just for a few, it is not just for people in the academe engaged in philosophy or scientists in well-funded laboratories. It is a call that is directed to each and every Christian.

In the words of St. Josemaria, “God is calling you to serve him in and from the ordinary, secular and civil activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.”

“O God, who bestowed on Saint John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church; graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fulness of your truth. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Honey Libertine Achanzar-Labor, PhD)