Introduction
The
decision to take “Out of Shadows and Images into the Truth” as the epitaph on
his tombstone, was the most fitting homage John Henry Newman paid his entire life.
This maxim - Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem – is more than an epitaph: it
is the defining principle that ruled Newman, from the beginning to the end. The
most brilliant expression of the virtue of truth in Newman, is dramatized in the Apologia
Pro Vita Sua. There, he sets out to defend himself against a “scurrilous
public attack by Charles Kingsley” on the sincerity of his actions and on the
truth about his newfound home, the Roman Catholic Church. Newman expresses his disgust at the way Kingsley
focuses on him, and “certainly, here was an opportunity to practice what Newman
had so often preached, that one must suffer for the truth".[1]
However,
like Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, Newman’s search for the truth had
thrown him from his high intellectual horse into a spiritual turmoil. In the
Acts of the Apostles, Paul reflects on this remarkable experience:
“Thus
I journeyed to Damascus…At midday…I saw on the way a light from heaven,
brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And
when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the
Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’” (Acts 26:12-14)
Newman’s
spiritual turmoil would eventually direct him to seek out assistance, not
merely in intellectual curiosity or scholarly debates, but also in the power of
God’s mercy.
From
the high horse of rabbinical scholarship Paul would bow down before Ananias;
and from the high horse of Oxford scholarship, Newman would bow down before Fr
Dominic Barberi. Their conversion stories demonstrate a certain interconnection
between the search for truth and the power of mercy in human life.
I
should like to say that this is not just another essay on Newman’s search for
the truth, but an essay about how truth
and mercy wedded in the rich spiritual journey of J. H. Newman and how these
things are relevant to us today. Let us now plunge into the deeper meanings of
truth and mercy in the life of Cardinal Newman. We begin with the truth.
1.1.
The
Light of Truth
The ‘fake news’ analysis of
media houses today seems to be getting exaggerated. But there is something
certainly true in this analyses. Someone has called the present times the
post-truth generation. In fact, the media is a powerful metaphor of how this
postmodern era more often than not, turns truth into a social construct, creates
their own ‘truths’ and allows ethical issues shift with the shifting political
polls. Indeed we are living in a generation where dishonesty has become
commonplace, and truth more often than not, is sacrificed in the altar of
political or religious correctness. Speaking about speaking the truth in
today’s media houses, the famous
American film star and producer Denzel Washington made some statements; he said,
“one of the effects of too much information is the need to be first, not even
to be true anymore."
"In our society, now it's just first — who
cares, get it out there. We don't care who it hurts. We don't care who we
destroy. We don't care if it's true,"
What is striking about Denzel Washington here is
his love of truth. People are losing
confidence not only in media houses but in cultural, political, and religious
structures, that no more represent what life truly is.
Because John Henry Newman
allowed himself to be led by the kindly light of Truth, he built on Augustine
of Hippo’s example, and was among the thinkers of his day that searched for
truth in all the hidden corners of the world. On the preeminence of truth,
Newman inscribes the following epigrammatic words in a letter to an Anglican
friend:
Truth can fight its battle. It has a reality in it, which shivers to pieces swords of earth. As far as we are not on the side of truth, we shall shiver to bits, and I am willing it should be so.[2]
The complexity of the world we
live in, has made it a difficult feat to find truth. Newman believed that
passion, patience, doubt, certitude and grace were hallmarks of the search for
the truth. Such virtues would lead Newman to philosophically reexamine his life
and the world he lives in:
I
look out of myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills
me with unspeakable distress. The world
seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so
full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as
confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself.[3]
On this, Newman would argue
that since he looks into the mirror and sees that he is, he has no difficulty
in looking into this busy concrete world and seeing the reflection of God who
created the world.
Newman believed in the Church
and believed that she was the bulwark and dispenser of Truth. He didn’t like,
seeing truth and the Church being caricatured by people who knew little about
it. He would not fear to tackle high profiled personalities like Gladstone when
they engaged in such aberrations. An
example in his writings of what we are talking about is The Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Important here is to consider
what prompted the writing of the letter. The letter came in the aftermath of
the First Vatican Council’s definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility.
Gladstone the English Prime minister had infuriated Newman with his statement
that Catholics could not be trusted citizens of the country because one could
not simultaneously be faithful to the Catholic Church and loyal to the State.
Newman believed this to be a misrepresentation of English Catholicism.
For him, the affirmation of Gladstone was the night of falsehood to be countered with the light of truth; and Newman skillfully corrects this fabrication in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. After having maintained that Catholics are duty bound to obey the Pope in his divine function, Newman reminds his countrymen in this letter that it is not wholly Catholic theology that says a thing is good or bad merely because an authority says so, as he concludes thus: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I shall drink – to the Pope, if you please, - still, to Conscience first, and to the pope afterwards".[4]The event of this letter to the Duke paints the picture of Newman’s investigative excellence and intellectual honesty in the quest for religious truth. Ultimately, it confirmed the profundity of Newman’s comprehension of the Catholic Church.
Another masterpiece of Newman written in defense
of the truth is Lectures on the Present
Position of Catholics in England. In this particular book, he posited that
the fiercest enemy of truth was prejudice. By prejudice here he meant
pre-judgment, judgment by anticipation.[5]
Defamation, falsification and parody of the Catholic faith had become a natural
phenomenon in Newman’s England. No matter how much you were gifted, no matter
how much you contributed to nation building, to be a Catholic was to be a
profligate. In fact, in this England, the Anglicans (in the words of Newman
himself)were “kinder even to their dogs and cats than us”[6].
So much dirt was flung on Catholicism. To be able to strip the Catholic church
of these fallacies and fiction, Newman exposed prejudice for what it truly
was. Prejudice, he said, “can tell
falsehoods to our dishonor by the score”; it is “jealous of truth”; prejudiced people “if they condescend
to listen for a moment to your arguments it is in order to pick holes in
them..”[7]
In the context of Newman’s England, prejudice tamed facts, misstated Church
doctrines, diffused wild allegation, defamed the character of holy men. Newman,
faithful to his principle of defender of truth, became one of the greatest
warriors against prejudice during his times.
He did this so entirely and valiantly especially in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England. As a consequence, the following homage by Catholic Times was paid him immediately news came out that he was dead:
John
Henry Newman conquered prejudice and won universal affection by the noble
simplicity of his character, his fearless and unswerving adhesion to truth, his
high and lofty ideal of duty, and his incomparable intellectual gifts. Those
who are old enough to remember the outbursts of anti-Catholic feeling which in
years gone by were so frequent amongst the Protestants of Great Britain cease
not to wonder at the change which has come over the land. How much of this
change is due to the part played by Cardinal NEWMAN in the national life! (…)
And as he found light himself he diffused it (…) and the Catholic body
gradually obtained a fuller toleration.[8]
Newman’s
only longing was to be truth’s devotee: “My desire hath been to have Truth for
my chiefest friend, and no enemy but error”.[9] In
fact, in the words of Paul Shrimpton, Newman “ (…) speaks to us with moral and
spiritual urgency, determined that neither habit, familiarity, nor prejudice
will prevent us from being open to the truth, including the truth about
ourselves”.[10]
Newman had a very deep sense of
personal freedom and fully believed in what he called an innermost “intercourse
between myself and my Maker.” To him, influence and personal example were essential
qualities for the quest for truth. He preferred those whose personal example
influenced the life of other men and women to dedicate their lives to truth:
[Truth]
has been upheld in the world not as a system, not by books, not by argument,
nor by temporal power, but by the personal influence of... men... who are at
once the teachers and the patterns of it.[11]
When truth is incarnated in
persons, it is no more in need of sermons from pulpits or podiums. That is the
message of Newman.
Among
the elements that show how Newman witnessed to the truth, the event of the writing
of the Apologia Pro Vita Sua was the
most outstanding. Just about enjoying his membership into the Catholic Church
he got the shock of his life when news of Kingsley’s outrageous attack came to
him something like this: “O the chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile
hypocrisy, the conscience-killing tyranny of Rome! We have not far to seek for
an evidence of it. There’s Father Newman to wit: one living specimen is worth a
hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing of Priests, tells us that lying is
never any harm.”[12]
Newman refused to accept the calumny of Kingsley and in his own words: “I do
not like to be called to my face a liar and a knave; nor should I be doing my
duty to my faith or to my name, if I were to suffer it. I know I have done
nothing to deserve such an insult. And if I prove this, as I hope to do, I must
not care for such incidental annoyances as are involved in the process.”[13]
With these words he went on a long, painful and
fruitful journey to defending himself against untruth. He did it
excellently in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
However,
during this defense of self, Newman discovers that “there is something deeper
in our differences than the accident of external circumstances; and that we
need the interposition of a Power, greater than human teaching and human
argument, to make our beliefs true and our minds one”.[14]
That thing for Newman, would be God’s loving mercy on man. If ever there was a
date-making event in Newman’s life this was it; it would be what I call the
primacy of mercy in the narrative of his rich spiritual life and in the story
of all holy men and women. Pope Francis brings this into the arena, in his
ministry; and in his own words: “Once mercy has been truly experienced, it is
impossible to turn back. It grows constantly and changes our lives. It is an
authentic new creation: it brings about a new heart, capable of loving to the
full, and it purifies our eyes to perceive our needs.”[15]
Aptly, Newman affirms: “all the logic in the world would not have made me move
faster towards Rome than I did”[16].
God’s mercy and the motherly welcoming of the Church brought him to the
Catholic Church. In fact, Newman knew very well that in the act of conversion
God takes the upper hand, and then man cooperates as we read in John’s Gospel,
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so
that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” (John 15: 16). That to
me is how truth and mercy interplay in the rich spiritual life of John Henry
Newman. It is that power of God’s mercy I will
explore now.
1.2.
The Power of Mercy
Of all the decisions that have
revolutionized the Catholic Church in this century, few have been more
compelling than the courageous decision of Pope John XXIII to open a Second
Vatican Council. In a speech that began that Ecumenical Council, John XXIII
spelt out what the Council meant in our times in the following words:
The Church has always opposed … errors, and often condemned them with the utmost severity. Today, however, Christ's Bride (the Church) prefers the balm of mercy to the arm of severity. She believes that, present needs are best served by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations.[17]
The effects of these words were far-reaching not
only to the Ecumenical Council Fathers but its message on the ‘the balm of
mercy’ has been all-embracing in the Church after the Council. So remarkable
and extensive have been the benefits of the message, that since the days of
Pope John XXIII to our own, the Church has found mercy as an original way of
bringing a breath of fresh air back into the world. The mercy of God, Pope
Francis says, is “the beating heart of
the Gospel”.[18]This
is in keeping with the Gospel message: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,”
(Matthew 9:13).This second part of the presentation is about the power of God’s
mercy in John Henry Newman. This second half of my presentation is, for many
reasons, of the highest importance.
The most exciting element which
graphically pictures the work of mercy in Newman’s life was the event of his
conversion to the Catholic Church. To be able to fathom the profundity of God’s
mercy shown Newman in his conversion story, it is important to understand the
amount of hate speech Newman spewed on Catholicism during his Anglican days. He
grew up believing that the Roman Catholic Church was a symbol of the Antichrist
foretold in the Bible. His abhorrence - as an Anglican - of the Catholic Church
was razor-sharp. A man who hurled curses
and invective at the Catholic Church like ‘crafty’, ‘obstinate’, ‘malicious’,
‘cruel’, ‘unnatural’, ‘demoniac’, could not but be grateful to this very Church
for inestimable mercy shown a detractor like him. Come to think of it, in 1844,
just some months before his conversion to Rome, Newman was still at daggers
with the Roman Catholic Church: “I have no existing sympathies with Roman
Catholics.
I hardly even, even abroad, was at one of their
services – I know none of them. I do not like what I hear of them”..[19] The mercies of God began visiting his soul. This
period immediately before his conversion, he calls his Anglican ‘death-bed’: “A
death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of
rallying,and seasons of falling back.” [20] This ‘death-bed’symbolizes the vision of God’s
mercy in Newman’s life. On the 9th of October 1845, he was received
into the Catholic Church.He will see his conversion into Catholicism as a
manifestation of God’s mercy in his life:
I have had more to try and afflict me in
various ways as a Catholic than as an Anglican; but never for a moment have I
wished myself back; never have I ceased to thank my Maker for His Mercy in
enabling me to make the great change, and never has He let me feel forsaken by
Him, or in distress, or any kind of religious trouble.[21]
God’s boundless mercy has visited Newman,
forgiven his youth, and brought him closer to Jesus, as he himself would lament
in prayer: “O my God,
that overpowering love took me captive. Was any boyhood so impious as some
years of mine! Did I not in fact dare Thee to do Thy worst? Ah, how I struggled
to get free from Thee; but Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed. I have
not a word to say, but to bow down in awe before the depths of Thy love.”[22]
This is the profound impact of mercy on those
who honestly search for the truth.
Life is a great teacher. Right from childhood
days Newman had learned the virtue of pardon from his parents. As a young boy
in Trinity College he met the humiliation of his life when he failed his
examinations. It brought him untold psychological suffering. He lamented to his
father in a letter:
The
pain it gives me to be obliged to inform you and my Mother of it I cannot
express. What I feel on my own account is indeed nothing at all, compared with
the idea that I have disappointed you.[23]
The forgiving consolation of Newman’s parents when he
failed examinations would teach him the importance of mercy in life. The mercy
of a human father and a human mother,
and therefore the mercy of our Heavenly Father, God. Later on as an Anglican
Church man, Newman would meet another embarrassing experience in Oxford when
his authorities would expose and discredit him as a result of the 90th
article on Tracts for the Times.
Such humbling events in his life rather than
crush him, strengthened his faith in God. They made him understand that to be
holy is to be dependent on God as Newman appeals in prayer: “without You (God) I
can do nothing, and You are there where Your Church is and Your Sacraments.”[24],
“how merciful Thou hast been to me (…) Not for my merit, but from Thy free and
bountiful love.”[25]
What then
can we today, learn from the story of Newman’s life? His life can teach the
genuine seeker of truth, that however intellectually absorbed he is in digging
out truth in his private study, he will do effective work if he is dependent on
God, if he is merciful to the faltering, if he dialogues with his detractors,
if he is patient with the ignorant, and if he is attentive to the cry of the
disadvantaged.
Newman’s
burning passion for truth spread through his entire life. But the epicenter of
this engagement is the event of his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism.
The reciprocity between truth and mercy, between person and community, between
conscience and conversion quickly acquired an epic quality in that particular
moment of his life. He would look for truth in the privacy of his Oxford study,
but would find its plenitude in the merciful welcoming of the Catholic Church.
God’s mercy
has an indescribable power. Newman enlightens our minds with the light of truth
and enkindles our hearts with the power of mercy. Joseph Ratzinger (who later
became Pope Benedict XVI) identified this and positioned Newman in contemporary context with the aid
of the following succinct words:
The
characteristic of the great Doctor of the Church it seems to me, is, that he
teaches not only through his thought and speech but also by his life... If this
is so, then Newman belongs to the great teachers of the Church, because he both
touches our hearts and enlightens our thinking.[26]
Today, few Christian thinkers have done a
winning intellectual battle over the past century, against falsehood and
infidelity, than Cardinal John Henry Newman. Perhaps it was an excellent idea
for John Allen to confer on him the fitting title of Catholicism’s patron saint
of relevance.[27]
One of the reasons for this relevance would unquestionably be that Newman appears with excellent answers to
nearly all hot-button issues of the Church today. One of such is the centrality
of truth and mercy in the life of Christians demonstrated by the pages of this
essay. This in a nutshell is the relevance of this modern voice, Newman, today.
Conclusion
We
frequently entrap ourselves in the same tricky web as the disciples did on the
road to Emmaus, paying attention to what seems to be losing ground, not to
where we are destined to go. In those moments, we can so easily mistake thorns
for roses, and roses for thorns. Newman’s faith journey has much to teach those
willing to listen. Therefore, let us accompany Newman in his inspiring journey,
in seeking the truth. By combining truth with mercy in the discovery of the
life of Newman, I have tried to demonstrate his spiritual accomplishments in
the full context of his times, and hence in a fresh light. What emerges from
this narrative is the image of a Christian philosopher and a holy man, capable
not just of pursuing truth but of trusting in the divine mercies of the Maker
of Heaven and Earth. It is not enough to talk about truth, or else we are
nothing more than spectators. We must act like Newman, by opening our hearts to
God’s surprises while we seek out the truth.
By so doing,
Newman would meet a surprise, a surprise in mercy which would bring him to
conversion, to his final destination – the Catholic Church. There are good reasons
to conclude that the God-who-is-Truth is the God-who-is-Mercy. No doubt Pope
Francis advocates today: “Now is the time to unleash the creativity of mercy.”[1]Today,
for all those truly dedicated to offering their lives to the pursuit of God,
and therefore to the pursuit of the truth, the greatest test that Newman and
the Catholic Church can offer, is the test of mercy.
By Fr Gerald
Jumbam
[1] I. KER, John Henry Newman, Oxford University Press, 381.
[2]J. H. NEWMAN, The Letters and Diaries of J. H. Newman
To R. Belaney, 25.01.1841.
[4] J. H. NEWMAN, A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
[5] J. H. NEWMAN, Lectures on the Present Position of
Catholics in England, London 1908, 227.
[6] J. H. NEWMAN, Lectures on the Present Position of
Catholics in England, 264.
[7] J. H. NEWMAN, Lectures on the Present Position of
Catholics in England, 314.
[8]J.
Glancey(ed.),
“Catholic Times”, in The Press on Cardinal
NewmanWith A Short Sketch Of His Life, (undated), in http://www.newmanreader.org/biography/death/index.html, 51-52.
[9] J. H. NEWMAN, The Via Media of
the Anglican Church, Vol I, Westminster 1978,XII.
[10] P. SHRIMPTON, The ‘Making of Men’,Gracewing,
Leominster 2014, xliii.
[11] Newman, Fifteen Sermons, 96-97.
[12] See I. KER, John Henry Newman, Oxford University Press, 536.
[15]POPE FRANCIS, Apostolic Letter, Misericordia Et Misera, 16.
[17] JOHN XXIII, “Pope John XXIII's
Opening Address of Vatican Council II”, in Marians
of the Immaculate Conception, http://www.marian.org/news/Pope-John-XXIIIs-Opening-Address-of-Vatican-Council-II-5666, October 11, 1962.
[18] POPE FRANCIS, Misericordia Et Misera, 12.
[19]LD, To Henry Edward Manning, 16
November 1844.
[21] In his ‘Postscript’ to The Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,
Newman would lament in expression of this mercy shown him:
[22] J. H. NEWMAN, Meditations and Devotions, Longmans,
Green and Co., London 1907, 399 – 400.
[24]J. H. NEWMAN, Meditations and Devotions, Longmans,
Green and Co., London 1907,
[25]J. H. NEWMAN, Meditations and Devotions, Longmans,
Green and Co., London 1907, 398.
[26] J. RATZINGER, First centenary of the Death of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a
Presentation of 28 April 1990, http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/Cardinal-Newman/The-Popes-on-Newman/Pope-Benedict-XVI-on-Newman.
[27] JOHN ALLEN, “John Henry Newman
could become the patron saint of relevance, in Crux”, January 23, 2016,
https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/01/23/john-henry-newman-could-become-the-patron-saint-of-relevance/
[28] POPE FRANCIS, Apostolic Letter, Misericordia Et Misera, 18.
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