ENGLAND’S ‘RETURN TO WALSINGHAM’?

Catholics readying country's rededication as 'Our Lady's Dowry'

From Church Militant
By Stephen Wynne

On Tuesday, Catholics across the United Kingdom celebrated the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham, a feast commemorating apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a pious English noblewoman in 1061.

The celebration marked the final months of a multi-year prayer campaign for national re-evangelization and conversion that will culminate on March 29, 2020, with the rededication of England as the Dowry of Mary.

An exhibition brief marking the upcoming rededication explains the significance of the title: "The word 'dowry' (from the Latin dos, meaning 'donation') is sometimes understood as the donation accompanying a bride. In medieval English law, however, the meaning was reversed — a husband would set aside a portion of his estate ... for the maintenance of his wife, should she become a widow."

"The historical understanding of England as 'Mary's Dowry' is understood in this sense — that, England has been 'set apart' for Mary," it adds.

Campaign organizers describe the next few months as a time of grace, "when all England is invited to renew their own personal 'YES' to the Lord Jesus through parish communal acts of preparation for Consecration to Jesus through Mary."

They're also inviting U.K. Catholics to commit to "regular Confession, the praying of the Angelus, Rosary and prayerful invocation of the Saints and Martyrs of England as ongoing prayer for our nation and the entire British Isles."

England was once renowned for its Catholic piety — especially its devotion to the Blessed Virgin, embodied by the dozens of Marian shrines adorning the country.  

The title "Our Lady's Dowry" is thought to have originated during the reign of St. Edward the Confessor (1042–1066). By the middle of the 14th century, its use was widespread. 

On July 15, 1381, King Richard II (1377–1399) officially dedicated England to Our Lady as Her Dowry, entrusting the realm to Her care and protection — an event depicted in the renowned medieval painting, the Wilton Diptych.

Reflecting on England as "set apart" for Mary, Abp. Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in 1399:

The contemplation of the great mystery of the Incarnation has drawn all Christian nations to venerate her from whom came the first beginnings of our redemption. But we English, being the servants of her special inheritance and her own dowry, as we are commonly called, ought to surpass others in the fervour of our praises and devotions.

Around 1496, Richard Pynson, printer to King Henry VII, composed the Walsingham Ballad, which declares: "O England, great cause have you to be glad compared to the Promised Land, for you are graced to stand in that degree, through this gloriously lady's intercessions; to be called in every realm and region the Holy Land, Our Lady's Dowry; thus are you called from all antiquity."

"No other nation claimed such an honor as this," writes Fr. Matthew Pittam, a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. "Before the Reformation, England was as advanced as any other European country in steadfast devotion to Our Lady."

He recounts that King Henry VIII's revolt in the 1530s marked a turning point for the country's devotion to the Virgin Mary:

With the Reformation came the fanatical destruction of so much of the great Catholic heritage, art and architecture of England. Shrines were destroyed, important images of Our Lady were taken to Chelsea and burned, and holy men and woman died for their faith. Alongside this iconoclasm and terror came the dimming of the memory of Our Lady's Dowry.

 Even so, Fr. Pittam notes, "[F]or some the hope and promise of this special honor was never completely extinguished."

"Recusant families, those who kept the flame of Catholicism burning during penal times (when Catholicism was outlawed), maintained the faith at great personal cost," he adds. "For many of these families, the belief in Mary's Dowry spurred them on during their most difficult and trying years and gave them strength to persevere through persecution."

In 1893, Pope Leo XIII urged English Catholic pilgrims in Rome to remember "the wonderful filial love which burnt within the hearts of your forefathers towards the great Mother of God, to whose service they consecrated themselves with such abundant proofs of devotion, that the Kingdom itself acquired the singular title of 'Mary's Dowry.'"

Dowry Tour organizers note that unlike King Richard II's dedication in 1381, next year's rededication "will not be the gift of the country of England, but the personal gift of the faith of the people of England to the Mother of God, to seek her help in building a strong spiritual foundation" for the re-evangelization of the country. 

In the immediate lead-up to the rededication, on Feb. 21, 2020, all Catholics are invited to begin a personal 33-day consecration to Jesus through Mary, following the method of St. Louis de Montfort. The personal consecration will culminate on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. 

March 26–March 28 will mark a three-day triduum of prayer, during which participants will go to confession and join in recitation of the Rosary and the Litany of the Saints and Martyrs of England.

Finally, on March 29, the personal rededication of England as the Dowry of Mary will occur in Westminster and Walsingham, as well as every cathedral and parish in the country.

Participants will implore Our Lady's intercession, mindful of what some regard as a prophecy of spiritual renewal: When signing the rescript for the Restoration of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in 1897, Pope Leo XIII declared that "When England returns to Walsingham, Our Lady will return to England."

England to be Re-Dedicated as Dowry of Mary

The rector of Walsingham Shrine made the announcement while promoting a new novena to Our Lady of Walsingham

England will be re-dedicated as the Dowry of Mary in 2020, the rector of Walsingham Shrine has said.

Mgr John Armitage announced the plans while promoting a new prayer booklet encouraging Catholics to pray a novena to Our Lady of Walsingham.

Mgr Armitage, who became rector in 2014, helped to update the booklet. He told Independent Catholic News: “This novena in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham is the beginning of a National Novena of Prayer for our country which will help us prepare spiritually for the re-dedication of England as the Dowry of Mary in 2020 on the Solemnity of the Annunciation.”

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

Ampleforth Abbey Awarded £2.9 Million Lottery Grant

The home of the largest Benedictine monastic community in Britain has been given a fundraising boost for urgent repairs to preserve historic church

Ampleforth Abbey, home to the largest Benedictine monastic community in Britain, has been awarded a grant of £2.9 million by Heritage Lottery Fund.

The grant will be released in its entirety once Ampleforth Abbey processes plans to make urgent repairs to the Grade II listed Monk’s Bridge and the Grade I listed Abbey Church.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >> 

 

New Catholic University to Open in London

Benedictus, which will open in central London next year, is backed by philosophers Roger Scruton and Anthony O’Hear

Benedictus will be the fourth Catholic university in England (CNS)

A new Catholic university backed by philosophers Roger Scruton and Anthony O’Hear is to open in London.

Benedictus aims to open in central London next year, offering honours degrees and charging £12,000 a year. Students will spend the first term on a grand tour of Italy and will learn the canon of Western thought during their time at the university.

It will be the fourth Catholic university in England, alongside St Mary’s Twickenham, Leeds Trinity and Newman University in Birmingham.

Read more at The Catholic Herald (UK) >>

A British Royal Comes to America to Tell the Catholic Story

Next week Washington DC will be treated to the arrival of a pro-life Catholic who is also a member of the British royal family.

How is that possible?

Nicholas Windsor gave up his place in line to the British throne when he converted to the Catholic Church in 2001. He became “the first male blood Royal to convert to Catholicism since Charles II on his deathbed in 1685.”

Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. Photo by Imaginativename

Lord Nicholas—now 43—was married to his wife Paola Frankopan, who is descended from the noble line in Croatia, and became the first British royal ever married in the Vatican. His godfather is Prince Charles. His first cousin once removed is Queen Elizabeth. He is, to say the least, connected.

Lord Nicholas is coming to Washington DC in the company of Lord David Alton, a life peer, that is, his title cannot be inherited, who is one of the great pro-life heroes in Great Britain and beyond.

The two Lords are coming to present their joint project for a Museum of Christian Heritage to be located at the Jesuit estate Stonyhurst, the home of Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, England.

Read more at Nobility.org >>

A Passion for England: The Astonishing Story of the Passionists

‘From their commencement of their existence as a body, Passionists have been sighing to shed their blood for England.’

~Passionist Father Ignatius Spencer, Anglican convert and the great, great, great uncle of Lady Diana Spencer

Of all the amazing stories surrounding England and Christianity, the story of the Congregation of the Discalced Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (‘Passionists’) stands out. What can one say about a group of Italian idealists – monks and priests – who consecrated their lives to the conversion of England, just when all seemed darkest for the Catholic cause?

For it was almost 200 years after Henry broke from Rome, in the waning days of 1720, that Saint Paul of the Cross recorded his thoughts and prayers in a diary kept during a Forty Day retreat whilst writing the Rule of his Passionist order. On the Feast of Saint Stephen, December 26, he tells us,

‘On Thursday I experienced a particular spiritual uplift, especially during Holy Communion. I longed to go and die as a martyr in some place where the adorable mystery of the most Blessed Sacrament is denied. The Infinite Goodness has given me this desire for some time, but today I felt it in a special way. I desired the conversion of heretics, especially in England and the neighbouring kingdoms, and I offered a special prayer for this intention during Holy Communion.’ 

Read more at Regina >>

Chesterton’s Secret People

The English Catholics

It was a rainy spring morning in Wallingford, a charming grey stone market town in Oxfordshire, bordering the meandering Thames. I slipped out of a friend’s house on foot, headed for morning Mass. The wet streets were practically empty, save for a few early Sunday shoppers.

Finding the church was a little tricky, as its location in an un-charming,  new-brick edifice around the corner from a street ATM was more than discrete; a  tiny sign was the only indication of its presence. Inside, however,  were pews filled with Catholics, standing room only.  I looked around me in wonder – the place was filled with people from every continent and walk of life. From my cramped seat in the back, I listened carefully. The priest was an Irishman, and his homily was forceful and direct.

In the last 15 years, I have attended Masses all over England, and what has struck me most about English Catholics in the pews is how similar they are to Catholics in the United States today.  In the suburbs, you find the churches filled with older people, there out of long habit and young families, trying to pass on the Faith. There are almost no single young people. In the big city churches, a grand mix of types of all races and nationalities – singles, couples, old and young, plus a sprinkling of tourists. And in the solemn Latin Masses, the pews are filled with a creative minority of intellectuals, artists, entrepreneurs and young families with lots of children.

So who are they, G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Secret People,’ the Catholics of England? 

Read more at Regina >>

Former Anglican Priest Installed as Catholic Bishop of East Anglia

From BBC News

 

Bishop Hopes at his installation on Tuesday (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

The new Roman Catholic Bishop for the diocese of East Anglia, who previously served as a Church of England priest, has been installed.

The Right Reverend Alan Hopes, 69, was welcomed at the West Door of the Catholic cathedral in Norwich before the two-hour Mass of Installation.

Bishop Alan will lead Roman Catholics in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Descendant of Charles Darwin Becomes a Catholic Apologist

Laura Keynes

By Ed West

A direct descendant of Charles Darwin has become a Catholic apologist.

Laura Keynes, a great-great-great-granddaughter of the English naturalist, has joined Catholic Voices, the project set up to speak up for the Church in the media

She writes in this week’s Catholic Herald about how she returned to her childhood Catholic faith after a period of agnosticism.

The daughter of an atheist father and a mother who had converted to Catholicism but later became a Buddhist, she was baptised Catholic. But she says she drifted into agnosticism in her teens and “away from any contact with the Church”.

When she began studying for a doctorate in philosophy at Oxford she started to “reassess those values. Relationships, feminism, moral relativism, the sanctity and dignity of human life”.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

Father Aidan Nichols: The Future of the Church in England

Father Ray Blake's Blog has posted an important and interesting talk that prominent theologian, Father Aidan Nichols, O.P., has given on the Future of the Church in England. His comments on schools, family, religious life and liturgy are relevant to the universal Church.

Father Nichols is the John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer, University of Oxford; has served as the Robert Randall Distinguished Professor in Christian Culture, Providence College; and is a Fellow of Greyfriars, Oxford. He has also served as the Prior of the Dominicans at St. Michael's Priory, Cambridge. Father Nichols is the author of numerous books including Looking at the Liturgy, Holy Eucharist, Hopkins: Theologian's Poet, and The Thought of Benedict XVI. His study of the Old Testament, Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church, was recently published by Ignatius Press.

Religious Liberty: A Commentary by Father Robert Barron

Father Robert Barron comments on the history of the Church in England, its vitality today, and the growing threats to religious liberty from secular tyrants.

England’s Saints Have Been Written Out of History

Our isle was once a land of saints, but now there is a trend to consign all religious people to the dustbin of history

St. Etheldreda at St. Peter and St. Paul Church, Ampton, Suffolk

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

By Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith

Today, under the old dispensation, which may yet return, would have been Corpus Christi, and at least in the Cathedral town of Arundel, it still is, and thousands of people will be rushing down to West Sussex to see the magnificent carpet of flowers and to take part in the solemn Mass and procession at 5.30pm. I, sadly, cannot be with them, and for those in that position, I offer some consolation in a reflection of today’s very English saint, St Etheldreda.

Etheldreda (630-679), sometimes called Audrey, was a royal princess, daughter of a king, twice married, second time around to the King of Northumbria; nevertheless she remained a virgin, took religious vows, and founded the Abbey of Ely. The Viking invaders later destroyed her abbey, but it was restored in more peaceful days, only to be suppressed once more in the 16th century by Henry VIII.

The period in which she lived is often called the Dark Ages. We ourselves live in a period of self-proclaimed Enlightenment. But these are broad brush terms, and as Catholics we believe in a hermeneutic of continuity: the past is not to be swept away, but rather should inspire us and provide us with a firm foundation for future progress. So we can learn, even from the Dark Ages. Sadly, St Etheldreda is now an almost forgotten historical figure, remembered in few places. The heroes of our history are those who destroyed her abbey, and who did so much damage to the fabric of our nation.

Converting Anglican Bishop Says Papal Action Changed the Landscape

Anglican Bishop Keith Newton

From Catholic News Agency

The Anglican Bishop of Richborough told his flock that he plans to become Catholic because Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution “completely changed the landscape” for Anglo-Catholics and he now believes that he must lead the way to union with the Universal Church.

Bishop Keith Newton of Richborough, England said in a pastoral letter to priests and people in the Richborough area that he will resign as bishop as of Dec. 31. He will not conduct any public episcopal services. This “difficult” decision followed much thought and prayer, he remarked.

“I will, in due course, be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and join the Ordinariate when one is erected in England, which I hope will happen early next year.”

Pope Benedict established the proposed Anglican Ordinariate, a special jurisdiction within the Catholic Church, in his apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus.”

Bishop Newton explained that although the issue of the ordination of women as Anglican bishops has been an important factor in his decision, it is “not the most significant.”

Noting the “surprise” of the Pope’s action on Anglican-Catholic relations, he said that most Anglicans have prayed for union with the Catholic Church. However, this union has seemed less likely because of “the new difficulties concerning the ordination of women and other doctrinal and moral issues affecting the Anglican Communion.”

“Although we must still pray for sacramental and ecclesial unity between our Churches that now seems a much more distant hope,” Bishop Newton said. The ordinariates provide an opportunity for “visible unity” and Anglicans are able to retain “what is best in our own tradition which will enrich the Universal Church.”

“I hope you will understand that I am not taking this step in faith for negative reasons about problems in the Church of England but for positive reasons in response to our Lord’s prayer the night before he died the ‘they may all be one’,” the bishop continued.

While expressing sympathy with the position that Anglicans with traditional views need leadership at a “vital” time, he rejected the example of a leader who should “stay to the bitter end like the captain of a sinking ship.” Rather, he noted the scriptural image of the shepherd, who must lead his flock from the front rather than follow it from behind.

“This is what I hope I am doing. I am leading the way and I hope and pray that many of you will follow me in the months and the years ahead,” he explained.

Bishop Newton acknowledged those who want to remain in the Church of England, but he said he could not continue to be their bishop “with any integrity” and cannot provide the episcopal leadership they deserve.

“You need a new Bishop of Richborough who has the same vision as you have and one for whom a solution in the Church of England is a priority. My priority is union with the Universal Church,” he added.

He said he has enjoyed being Bishop of Richborough for more than eight years and is grateful for the support he has received from so many Anglican priests and laity. The bishop asked forgiveness from those he has disappointed and sought continued prayers for himself and his wife.

Bishop Newton is one of three active Anglican bishops who are joining the Catholic Church. These so-called “flying bishops” have been serving Anglicans in different areas who do not accept the ordination of women to the priesthood and other changes in the Anglican Church.

Two retired Anglican bishops are also entering full communion with Rome.

Anglican Bishop Predicts 'Thousands' Will Enter Catholic Church

From Catholic World News

One of the five Anglican bishops who plans to enter the Catholic Church has predicted that “thousands, not hundreds” of lay Anglicans will make the same move.

Anglican Bishop John Broadhurst said that many Anglicans are watching carefully as plans for an Anglican ordinariate within the Catholic Church take shape. Roughly 1,000 Anglican parishes in Great Britain have voted not to accept women as priests: an indication that a substantial fraction of Anglicans would be in sympathy with the “Anglo-Catholic” approach.

Bishop Broadhurst said, however, that questions about women priests and bishops are not the only factor in the decision to enter the Catholic Church. He said that the offer extended by Pope Benedict in Anglicanorum Coetibus will prove irresistible for many of the Anglican faithful.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Thousands tipped to desert Church of England and follow bishops to Rome (Herald Sun)

Five Anglican Bishops Convert

From the Catholic Herald (UK)
By Anna Arco

Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, right, pictured with the late Rev Raymond Bristow and Rector Neil Hibbins in 2007 (Photo: PA)

Five traditionalist Anglican bishops have officially resigned this morning with the intention of taking up an English Ordinariate when it is set up.

This morning, the Rt Rev Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury accepted the resignation of three flying Church of England and two retired assistant bishops in what is a major development in the move towards establishing an Ordinariate in Britain.

The Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Keith Newton, Bishop of Richborough and Rt Rev John Broadhurst Bishop of Fulham as well as the Rt Rev Edwin Barnes the emeritus Bishop of Richborough and the Rt Rev David Silk, an emeritus assistant bishop of Exeter released a statement announcing their resignations.

They said: “As bishops, we have even-handedly cared for those who have shared our understanding and those who have taken a different view. We have now reached the point, however, where we must formally declare our position and invite others who share it to join us on our journey. We shall be ceasing, therefore, from public episcopal ministry forthwith, resigning from our pastoral responsibilities in the Church of England with effect from 31st December 2010, and seeking to join an Ordinariate once one is created.”

Bishop Newton has been tipped to be the Ordinary of an English Ordinariate when one is established.

Dr Williams said: “I have today with regret accepted the resignations of Bishops Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton who have decided that their future in Christian ministry lies in the new structures proposed by the Vatican. We wish them well in this next stage of their service to the Church and I am grateful to them for their faithful and devoted pastoral labours in the Church of England over many years.”

The Catholic liason officer for the Ordinariate, Bishop Alan Hopes, an auxiliary of Westminster said: “We welcome the decision of Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate for England and Wales, which will be established under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.”

The bishops are due to discuss the Ordinariate at their plenary meeting next week.

Full statement of the resigning Church of England Bishops:

Like many in the catholic tradition of Anglicanism, we have followed the dialogue between Anglicans and Catholics, the ARCIC process, with prayer and longing. We have been dismayed, over the last thirty years, to see Anglicans and Catholics move further apart on some of the issues of the day, and particularly we have been distressed by developments in Faith and Order in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly two thousand years.

The Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum cœtibus, given in Rome on 4th November 2009, was a response to Anglicans seeking unity with the Holy See. With the Ordinariates, canonical structures are being established through which we will bring our own experience of Christian discipleship into full communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world and throughout the ages. This is both a generous response to various approaches to the Holy See for help and a bold, new ecumenical instrument in the search for the unity of Christians, the unity for which Christ himself prayed before his Passion and Death. It is a unity, we believe, which is possible only in eucharistic communion with the successor of St Peter.

As bishops, we have even-handedly cared for those who have shared our understanding and those who have taken a different view. We have now reached the point, however, where we must formally declare our position and invite others who share it to join us on our journey. We shall be ceasing, therefore, from public episcopal ministry forthwith, resigning from our pastoral responsibilities in the Church of England with effect from 31st December 2010, and seeking to join an Ordinariate once one is created.

We remain very grateful for all that the Church of England has meant for us and given to us all these years and we hope to maintain close and warm relationships, praying and working together for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

We are deeply appreciative of the support we have received at this difficult time from a whole variety of people: archbishops and bishops, clergy and laity, Anglican and Catholics, those who agree with our views and those who passionately disagree, those who have encouraged us in this step and those who have urged us not to take this step.

The Right Revd Andrew Burnham
The Right Revd Keith Newton
The Right Revd John Broadhurst
The Right Revd Edwin Barnes
The Right Revd David Silk

Bishop Alan Hopes’ full statement:

“We welcome the decision of Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate for England and Wales, which will be established under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

At our plenary meeting next week, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales will be exploring the establishment of the Ordinariate and the warm welcome we will be extending to those who seek to be part of it. Further information will be made known after the meeting.”

Book Review: Newman's Inner Life

John Henry Cardinal Newman lived and died in England from 1801-1890. He spent half his life in the Church of England and half in the Roman Catholic Church.

From CatholicCulture.org
By Dr. Jeff Mirus

I’m a great admirer of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Ever since it became clear that his beatification was highly likely, I’ve prayed daily for his intercession. I’m a layman, married, and fairly insensitive—opposite characteristics to those of Newman—but when it comes to the sheer ability to write beautifully and persuasively about Christ, the Faith and the Church, well, I want to be like John. It is, of course, a vain hope: Newman was probably the greatest English prose stylist ever, certainly one of the greatest intellects of the 19th century, and undoubtedly one of the most spiritually perceptive of English-speaking saints.

Newman’s interior life was intimately bound up with his devotion to, and confidence in, the Church, which as a convert he never took for granted. This is one of the most important points made by Father Zeno, OFM Cap, in his wonderful new biography from Ignatius Press, John Henry Newman: His Inner Life. A Dutchman with a Ph.D. in English language and literature, Fr. Zeno is one of the world’s foremost Newman scholars, and in the preparation of this superlative volume, he was given unparalleled access to all of Newman’s papers in the archives maintained by the Oratorian Fathers in England. There are, in fact, over 400 files of such papers, for Newman was a great writer of letters and spiritual journals. The evidence for his interior life is unusually rich and extensive. And again, the spiritual life, for Newman, was to be understood in the context of the Church.

From a very early age, the young John Henry had a deep sense of being in the presence of God as of a Great Friend, who watched over him and spoke to him authoritatively in his conscience. Indeed, this sense of spiritual reality would ultimately play an important role in the development of his ideas on certitude, set forth in the Grammar of Assent (see The Meaning of Newman’s Grammar of Assent), which teaches us to understand the nature of the human assent to Faith, an essay of unparalleled precision and depth which both psychologists and philosophers are still studying over a hundred years later.

After a brief period in his teens when he strayed, Newman studied for Anglican orders and became an Anglican priest, ultimately leading the famous Oxford Movement to renew the Anglican communion, which then suffered all the complacency of establishment. Eventually he became aware that the Anglican claim to be the Church of Christ was exactly like the claims of those bodies in the Patristic Age, such as the semi-Arians, which in the face of heresy attempted to take a middle way between a dominant error and Rome, a middle way always rejected by the Fathers. After considerable soul-searching and study, he committed himself to write his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, realizing that if nothing in that study led him away from the Catholic Church, he would have to convert. It cost him the affection of his family and many dear friends to take that step, not to mention the loss of his position and income, and of everything he thought of as “home”.

Father Zeno traces Newman’s interior history throughout these and subsequent developments, including the difficulties of founding an Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham; his intense suffering in a libel trial for his (perfectly accurate) efforts to unmask an apostate priest, Giacinto Achilli, who was spreading lies about the Church in England; his efforts to found a Catholic university in Ireland; his need to defend the Church wisely and prudently in a period of intense anti-Catholicism, during which the Catholic hierarchy in England was restored; his efforts to explain himself against so many attacks by Anglicans and so much distrust in Rome (primarily the result of the powerful influence of Cardinal Manning who, having a very different temperament, misunderstood Newman); the death of many of his closest friends and priestly collaborators as he lived well beyond his three-score-and-ten; and his final vindication when Pope Leo XIII made him a Cardinal.

Throughout his life, Newman’s administrative and teaching duties were always heavy, so he wrote for publication only when he felt a unique need and a distinct call. The completion of each of his key works was accompanied by a decline in health. Meanwhile, his humility, penance, patience, spiritual firmness and delicacy in guiding souls were legendary. Despite his sensitive nature and the deep emotions he often had to overcome, he was determined to be guided always by God’s will, the good of the Church, the dictates of his reason over his feelings, and his intense concern never to quench the smoldering wick or crush the bruised reed in others. He had always before him his own shortcomings and was ever aware of the many projects to which he had devoted his all, only to see them fail. But to serve the Church was his sole goal, and obedience to his ecclesiastical superiors his chief means.

At the same time, Newman always felt himself richly, even incomparably blessed. He saw in his own life, through his efforts to be one with the Body of Christ, a parallel to the experience of St. Paul and a shadow of the life of the Church herself:

Who can say why so old a framework, put together eighteen hundred years ago, should have lasted, against all human calculation, even to this day; always going, and never gone; ever failing, yet ever managing to explore new seas and foreign coasts—except that He, who once said to the rowers, “It is I, be not afraid”, and to the waters, “Peace,” is still in His own ark which He has made, to direct and prosper her course?

Ultimately, Newman’s prayer for himself became a prayer not to succeed but to be used by God. He did not yearn for trials, but he accepted them: “Visit me not, O my loving Lord—if it be not wrong so to pray—visit me not with those trying visitations which saints only can bear…. Still I leave all in Thy hands, my dear Saviour—I bargain for nothing—only, if Thou shalt bring heavier trials on me, give me more grace.” This is a prayer which those of us who hope fervently to avoid martyrdom may make our own without any fear, and without any fault. In our own situation, we can also identify with a man who devoted his life to combatting the ever-increasing secular liberalism which threatened to engulf the Church even in the 19th century, and which he strove to meet at every turn with both superior reason and deeper Faith.

Fr. Zeno’s book reveals to us how Newman’s quintessentially Catholic spirituality, at once so deep and so pure, came to dominate his life, to shine through his preaching, to captivate his students, to shape his Oratorians, to permeate his polemical writings, and even to breathe itself into the universal Church through his larger and more definitive studies, and through his prayers. This is a fine work, written as if from Newman’s own heart, full of human drama and intense witness and the triumph of Faith. It is a great tribute to the spiritual and intellectual English giant who will be beatified in England by Pope Benedict XVI later this year, and it shines a wonderful light into the soul of a dedicated priest who could honestly say of all his efforts and all his projects: “No wish really means anything, which is not a prayer too.”

The Installation of Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster

Archbishop Vincent Nichols was installed this past week as the eleventh Archbishop of Westminster, and Primate of England and Wales. Full coverage of the installation in Westminster Cathedral is available here, and video highlights of the installation can be seen here.

Parliament Investigates England's Catholic Schools

As reported previously here, Catholic bishops in England have been ordered to appear before the House of Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families for what some Labour MPs deem an excessive Catholic influence in Catholic schools. Specifically, they are concerned about a ban by Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Lancaster, on what he calls “values free” sex education and his request that a crucifix be displayed in every classroom.

The chairman of the House Select Committee, Mr. Barry Sheerman, is quoted as saying: "It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith.”

The Daily Mail updates this outrageous story here.