"Knowing God, Being Made holy," A Lecture by Jennifer Newsome Martin

This lecture, “Knowing God, Being Made Holy: The Means of Sanctification in the Writings of St. John Henry Newman,” 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. This is understood as nothing other than the dramatic transformation of ourselves—through grace—into persons who will dwell eternally with the Holy Trinity. This talk particularly addresses the difficult task and vulnerable art of self-examination and self-knowledge, which is for Newman the precondition of religious knowledge and experience.

A systematic theologian, Dr. Jennifer Newsome Martin is an Assistant Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her book Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015) engages the religious character of modern philosophical thought, particularly in the German Idealist and Romantic traditions, as well as pre- and early Soviet era Russian religious philosophy, analyzing the submerged presence of modern speculative Russian thinkers on the aesthetic, historical, and eschatological dimensions of the theology of Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Dr. Martin is also the co-editor of An Apocalypse of Love: Essays in Honor of Cyril O’Regan (Herder & Herder, 2018). She is currently working on a second book project that treats repetition, poetics, and theologies of history in mainly French ressourcement theology, tentatively titled, “Recollecting Forwardly”: The Poetics of Tradition.

Dr. Martin gave this lecture at the National Institute as part of the Newman Studies Spring Newman Symposium, entitled, “Liturgy, Sanctity, and Selfhood in the Theology of St. John Henry Newman,” which was held March 12th and 13th, 2020.