Category: Spirituality
The Idea Idearum in Newman and Bouyer
An important theological theme in the Christian tradition is that of the divine ideas or logoi in the mind or Word of God by which God knows and loves in himself eternally all the ways that creatures can or do participate in a living likeness of him.
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Catholic Devotion to the Mother of God: What Newman’s Letter to Pusey (1866) tells us about Mariology and Marian Piety
Pusey’s appraisal of Mariology—a polemic containing a mixture of historical, theological and anecdotal evidence—was, on the whole, untrue and mostly a caricature; yet as Newman would be forced to admit in his formal published reply to Pusey in 1866, the Letter to Pusey, there was partial veracity to his claim that at times Mariology, in some of its devotional outpourings, has obscured devotion to God, especially God’s loving mediation brought to humanity through the Incarnation.
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Reading Louis Bouyer with Keith Lemna: A Review of The Apocalypse of Wisdom
The primary purpose of Lemna’s masterful book The Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer’s Theological Recovery of the Cosmos is to shed light on the “twists and turns of the path Bouyer charts in Cosmos” (xiii).
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Pusey’s 1843 Sermon on the Eucharist: A Rejected Eucharistic Theology
This article aims to understand why a defense of a corporeal, real presence of Christ in the sacrament was problematic in nineteenth-century England.
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A Pilgrimage with Newman: Reading Patricia O’Leary’s The Gentleman Saint
Patricia O’Leary’s The Gentleman Saint (Gracewing, 2020) is a short and delightful introduction to John Henry Newman.
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John Henry Newman’s Pandemic Ministry: A Balm for the Bereaved
Newman ministered to the sick and dying cholera victims and their families in Oxford, Birmingham, and Bilston.
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“Knowing God, Being Made holy,” A Lecture by Jennifer Newsome Martin
This lecture addresses the theme in St. John Henry Newman of the gradual—some would even say ordinary—pursuit of holiness throughout the course of the course of our human lives.
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Unlearning the Love of This World: Newman’s Sermons as Spiritual Reading during Lent
If you are anything like me, you have on at least one occasion squandered the holy season of Lent. The Church has established such times on the liturgical calendar so that we might enter more deeply into the mysteries of Christ’s life.
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The Cry of Repentance Versus the Bitter Cry of Regret
It’s easy to read this account from Scripture and to cast aspersions on Esau. “How could he have been so foolish?” we wonder. “I’d never act that rashly,” we tell ourselves. Yet how often in our own lives do we make a similar, yet graver mistake by squandering the gifts of God—in our case, the graces that we receive through the sacraments—in exchange for some lesser good?
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Unlearning Ourselves in Lent: Newman on Fasting
For Newman, the disciplines of Lent—in this case, fasting—are a way for the Christian to participate mystically in the life of Christ. By intensifying our self-denial for these forty days of Lent, we come to know, in part, what Christ experienced in full measure:
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Lent, the Season of Repentance
In reading Newman’s letters and diaries, it’s clear that he knew of divine mercy not as an abstract theological idea, but at a deeply personal level as a core part of his spiritual journey. Because he himself had experienced the grace of God in many profound ways, Newman was eager to encourage others to cast themselves before the mercy seat.
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Francis de Sales the Oratorian
There is something stirring about seeing two greats from different generations together in the same place. In the world of sports, for instance, some memorable photo-ops have come about this way—say, with a young Lebron James standing next to Bill Russell or with Derek Jeter warming up on the same baseball diamond as Cal Ripken Jr.
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National Institute for Newman Studies
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Recent Articles
Science’s Equivocal CrisisSeptember 22, 2022This essay seeks to clarify the nature of science. It examines popular approaches to science, these approaches’ potential effects, and the perspective that theology can provide to our potential misunderstandings of science. […]
Newman’s Campaign in Ireland: A Review of Paul Shrimpton’s New Edition (part II)August 30, 2022In 2021, the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory and Gracewing Press published My Campaign in Ireland Part I: Catholic University Reports and Other Papers and released the companion volume My Campaign in Ireland Part II: My Connection with the Catholic University in March 2022. […]
Newman’s Detractors … at NINS?June 8, 2022It was all the more remarkable when I discovered a collection of “Newman detractors” on the premises, a collection indicating the conflict between Newman, the champion of Roman Catholicism in England, and mainly evangelical Free Church academics around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. […]
Newman and Locke on the Epistemic Scope of CertitudeApril 27, 2022In the scholarly literature, John Locke (1632–1704) features as a formative influence on Newman’s philosophical thought. What usually gets highlighted, for example in the Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, are Newman’s criticism of Locke’s notion of degreed assent and his call for a broader and more nuanced account of the rationality of religious belief. However, some have argued that the Grammar largely focuses on the psychological conditions of religious belief. […]
Unlikely Soul Mates: Robert Browning and St. John Henry NewmanApril 5, 2022Despite their differences, and although Newman and Browning never met, they shared similar life experiences, and literary techniques, and both were concerned with the justification of Christianity, as well as the struggle between faith and doubt. Another parallel between these writers concerns their poetic interests. […]