As the calendar year draws to a close, many face the onerous preparations and obligations that mark the holiday season, and the hustle and bustle and frenzy of the shopping season is palpable—not to mention year-end reports or grading for some. Cards, lists, stores, travel. In the northern hemisphere, and places like Pittsburgh, the sun takes its leave far too early each day, and the bitter winds test the worth of our textiles.
Two hundred years ago, on 13 June 1824, the young Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who today the Church celebrates as a saint, made his way down the High and St. Aldate’s with his surplice and his MA hood, to be made a deacon of the Church of England in Christ Church Cathedral, the former medieval nunnery and shrine to St. Frideswide until Thomas Wolsey chose it to become Cardinal College in 1525.
In the summer of 1824, John Henry Newman preached his very first sermon shortly after being ordained as a deacon. He would go on to preach myriad sermons of enduring value. Generations of Christians have been and continue to be nourished by both his Parochial and Plain Sermons and University Sermons, as well as sermons from his Roman Catholic period. Two-hundred years later, we gathered together not only to commemorate the beginning of St. Newman’s preaching ministry, but also to explore and reflect on the wider topic of “Newman as Preacher” at the very churches in which he preached. This intimate, on-site conference featured three public keynote lectures along with other spiritually-enriching activities.
If our charge as Christians is to be holy in all that we do, what does this way of life look like in today’s world? This question is not easily answered simply by looking to past examples.
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 <em>Letter to Pusey</em>, 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.
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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