Newman as Parish Priest

by Father John McCloskey

It gives me great joy to be here in St. Patrick's Cathedral to help in the celebration of the bicentenary of John Henry Cardinal's birth and to be invited by the Rector of St. Patrick's, Msgr. Eugene Clark, himself a noted scholar and Church historian and to be included in such a distinguished group of Newmanists as Fr. Rutler. Msgr. Clark personifies better than anyone I know Newman's Ideal of a Gentleman as portrayed in his masterwork on education, "The Idea of a University."

I have written several articles on the Cardinal who was the subject of my doctoral dissertation and recently hosted a recent 13 part series on his life and work on EWTN. There are literally thousands of books and articles on Newman even after more than a hundred years after his death and no end in sight. Although such questions are always open for discussion and debate in such a universal Church, many do consider him one of if not the outstanding Catholic theologian of the last two centuries. Perhaps I should say thinker because if I can begin to enumerate all his literary skills, and interests we would never get to the subject of this particular talk.

The topic for this brief talk is Newman as parish priest. I think this would please him greatly because in many ways it may be, and understandably, the least examined aspect of his life by his biographers, both on account of the scarcity of archival material and also because of his pre-eminence as a thinker. At the same time, if the Venerable John Henry is one day to be raised to the altars as a Saint, it will not be, except partially, for his writings and controversies, but rather that he lived the virtues to a heroic degree as has already been testified by the Church, but rather that he lived his life as Catholic priest in struggling to live the priestly virtues of pastoral service according to his own vocation as an Oratorian priest. John Henry Newman was a pastoral priest and recognized as such during his lifetime as we will see. After all, what would all erudition and even his deep iety be worth if he were not engaged, given his circumstances in that "sincere gift of self" which the Second Vatican Council tells us is at the very heart of the Christian life?

There is relatively little written on Newman and the priesthood.¹ It is well to note that much if not virtually all that Newman proposed for the Catholic layman can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the Catholic priest. His views on the priesthood are not overly remarkable; however the beauty of his way of expressing them is. His life as a priest was exemplary, really in every aspect, although there continues to be some controversy over his foundation and governance of the English Oratory.²

At the heart of Newman's life was his sense of vocation and mission. As the Holy Father tells us in his recent letter (2/27/01) "On Occasion of the Second Centenary of the birth of Cardinal John Henry Newman:" "As Newman pondered the mysterious divine plan unfolding in his own life, he came to a deep and abiding sense that 'God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me that he has not committed to another. I have my mission'" Looking backwards, we can discern many different mission that God had entrusted to him, some successes and others apparent failures but at the heart of all of them was pastoral care for souls whether it be through his writings, or what he would certainly consider as more important, his preaching and sacramental ministrations."

From his Anglican ordination in 1825 through and and beyond his ordination as a Catholic priest, he always did his best, given the circumstances, to maintain a lively contact with souls, rich and poor, from all social classes.

Fr. Marvin O'Connell, the renowned Newman scholar from the University of Notre Dame tells us that:

The importance of the pastoral dimension in Newman's career cannot be overestimated. That he spent much of his waking time conducting liturgies, preaching, hearing confessions, catechizing children, visiting he sick, consoling the bereaved, even, when need be, playing the organ for Benediction, and, at one level of his mind, always worrying that there might not be enough money to keep the parish and its good works afloat-these humdrum parochial concerns determined the kind of man he was, and more to the point here, the kind of books he wrote.

To preach regularly in the same Sunday congregation is a world away from lecturing in a university hall to fellow or aspiring intellectuals. Newman could do both, of course-did both at Oxford and Dublin-but for him the pastoral had always enjoyed special primacy. Few of the great ecclesiastical personages of the 19th century possessed Newman's pastoral instincts, and perhaps more significantly, his pastoral experience. None of them has the care of a jail, an orphanage, and two poor schools, all within the confines of the Edgbaston parish and all with disproportionately high Catholic clientele. None of them had sat, as Newman did, holding the hand of a parishioner going black with cholera. None of them had bearded, as Newman had, the might provost of Oriel by insisting that, as college tutor to undergraduates, "it is my wish to consider myself as the minister of Christ."

As a Catholic priest he was noted for his love for the Holy Mass and devotion to the Eucharistic presence. "To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overwhelming as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses forever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words-it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom the angels bow and devils tremble."³ Speaking about Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: "It is our Lord's solemn benediction of his people, as when he lifted up His Hands over the children, or when He blessed His chosen ones when he ascended from Mount Olivet. As sons might come before a parent before going to bed at night, so once or twice a week, the great Catholic family comes before the eternal Father, after the bustle or toil of the day, and He smiles upon them and sheds upon him the light of his countenance."⁴

Newman spent hours each week over the course of decades at the Birmingham Oratory hearing confessions. "If there is a heavenly idea in the Catholic Church, looking at it simply as an idea, surely, next after the Blessed Sacrament, Confession is such. And such it is ever found in fact-the very act of kneeling, the low and contrite voice, the sign of the cross hanging, so to say, over the head bowed low, and the words of peace and blessing. Oh, what a soothing charm is there, which the world can neither gives nor takes away! Oh, what piercing, heart-subduing tranquillity, provoking tears of joy, is poured almost substantially and physically upon the soul, the oil of gladness, as Scripture calls it, when at length the penitent rises, his God reconciled to him, his sins rolled away forever! This is Confession as it is in fact."⁵

Newman's preaching in Mass, both as an Anglican and Catholic, was simply in style, content, and the impression left on the hearers the most profound in English of the nineteenth century, producing innumerable conversions and changes of hearts. Short of the Fathers of the Church or perhaps Bossuet, it is hard to think of any, man who had a better sense of the proper use of Scripture in preaching, anticipating in many ways the new emphasis on Scriptural preaching put forth by the Church in the Second Vatican Council. Listen to the impression he left on one witness, " For a few moments there was breathless silence. Then, in a low, clear, voice, of which the faintest vibration was audible in the farthest corner of St. Mary's, he said, 'Now, I bid you recollect that He to whom these things were done was Almighty God.' It was as if an electric stroke had gone through the church, as if every person present understood for the first time the meaning of what he had all his life been saying. I suppose it was an epoch in the mental history of more than one of my Oxford contemporaries."⁶

He was a confessor and spiritual director to hundreds, perhaps more, during the course of his life moved unceasingly by priestly zeal. It should be noted here that much of his priestly work had to do with the poor people of Birmingham, ignorant and in some cases, diseased. "No state of things comes amiss to a Catholic priest; he has always a work to do, and a harvest to reap. The disease is sin; all men have sinned; all men need a recovery in Christ; to all must that recovery be preached and dispensed. If then there is a preacher and dispenser of recovery, sent from God, that messenger must speak, not to one, but to all; he must be suited to all, he must have a mission to the whole race of Adam, and be cognizable by every individual of it. I do not mean that he must persuade all, and prevail with all- for that depends on the will of each ; but he must show his capabilities for converting all by actually converting some of every time, and every place, and every rank, and every age of life, and every character of mind."⁷

At the end of his extremely long life, Newman could look backwards over the decades and realize the prophetic truth in his case of the words he had written as a young Anglican clergyman. "So again they who enter Holy Orders promise they know not what, engage themselves they know not how deeply, debar themselves of the world's ways they know not how intimately, find perchance they must cut off from them the right hand, sacrifice the desire of their eyes and the stirrings of their hearts at the foot of the Cross, while they thought, in their simplicity, they were but choosing the quiet easy life of 'plain men dwelling in tents.'"⁸

Theologically, belief in the priesthood as divinely ordered is at the heart of Newman's conception of the priesthood. From it flows the whole sacramental system and indeed, the apostolic succession in the Church. This was true of Newman's Anglican life as well as, obviously, of his later Catholic one. "A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of Antichrist."⁹ Newman here is referring more to the necessity of a priestly order that teaches with authority than to its sacramental meaning. As he says much later, "If her clergy be priests, if they can forgive sins, and bring the Son of God upon her altars, it is obvious they cannot, considered as such, hold of the State. If they were not Priests, the sooner they were put under a minister of public instruction, and the Episcopate abolished, the better."¹⁰ He rejects wholeheartedly both a self-appointed priesthood not proceeding directly through the apostolic succession and the priesthood whereby religion and its ministers have become an appendage of the state, as in the Anglican.

The new Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests tells us "the identity of the priest comes from participation in the Priesthood of Christ, in which the one ordained becomes, in the Church and for the Church, a real, living and faithful image of Christ the Priest, 'a sacramental representation of Christ, Head and Shepherd.'"¹¹ The Cardinal puts it more poetically:

But when Christ had come, suffered, and ascended, He was henceforth ever near us, ever at hand, even though He was not actually returned, ever scarcely gone, ever all but come back. He is the only Ruler and Priest in His Church, dispensing gifts, and has appointed none to supersede Him because He is departed only for a brief season. Aaron took the place of Christ, and had a priesthood of his own; but Christ's priests have no priesthood but His. They are merely his shadows and organs, they are his outward signs; and what they do, He does; when they baptize, he is baptizing; when they bless, He is blessing. He is in all acts of His Church, and one of its acts is not more truly His act than another, for all are His. Thus we are, in all times, of the Gospel, brought close to His Cross. We stand, as it were, under it, and receive its blessings fresh from it; only that since, historically speaking, time has gone on, and the holy One is away, certain outward forms are necessary, by way of bringing us again under His shadow; and we enjoy those blessings through a mystery, or sacramentally, in order to enjoy them really.¹²

At the same time he states that the Christian priesthood is a participation in the one priesthood of Jesus, he also insists that the priest is united with the "common priesthood" in the mystical body of Christ. "There is under the Gospel but one proper priest, Prophet, and King, Altar, Sacrifice, and House of God. Unity is its characteristic sacrament; all grace flows from one Head, and all life circulates in the members of one Body, and what is true of priests and sacrifices, is true of righteous and holy men. It is their very privilege thus to be taken into Christ, to exist in Christ, as already in their mortal life they 'have their being' in God."¹³

The priest, then, according to Newman, in participating in Christ's priesthood, acts as an instrument in communicating his Redemption i.e. above all, the forgiveness of sin. "Christ is a priest, as forgiving sin, and imparting other needful divine gifts...By a Priest, in a Christian sense, is meant an appointed channel by which the peculiar Gospel blessings are conveyed to mankind, one who has power to apply to individuals those gifts which Christ has promised us generally as the fruit of his mediation."¹⁴ And "the only real antecedent difficulty which attaches to the doctrine of Christian priesthood is obviated by Scripture itself. It might be though that the power of remitting and retaining sins was too great to be given to sinful man over his fellows; but in matter of fact it was committed to the Apostles without restriction, though they were not infallible in what they did. 'Whose soever sins ye remit...' The grant was in the very form of it unconditional and left to their Christian discretion."¹⁵

Essentially, although by no means, exclusively, for Newman the priesthood exists for the administration of all the sacraments as means of communicating the redemptive grace of Christ.

Has not the Gospel Sacraments? And have not sacraments, as pledges and means of grace, a priestly nature? If so, the question of a Christian priesthood is narrowed at once to the simple question of whether it is or not probable that so precious an ordinance as a channel of grace would be committed by Providence to the custody of certain guardians. The tendency of opinions at this day is to believe that nothing more is necessary for acceptance than faith in God's promise of mercy; whereas it is certain from Scripture, that the gift of reconciliation is not conveyed to individuals except through appointed ordinances. Christ has interposed something between Himself and the soul; and if it is not inconsistent with the liberty of the Gospel that a Sacrament should interfere, there is no antecedent inconsistency in a keeper of the Sacrament attending upon it. Moreover, the very circumstance that a standing Ministry has existed from the first, leads on to the inference that the ministry was intended to take charge of the Sacraments; and thus the facts of the case suggest an interpretation of our Lord's memorable words when He committed to St. Peter "the keys" of the Kingdom of heaven.¹⁶

The sacrament, par excellence, to which are ordered the sacraments of initiation and penance, of course, is the Eucharist. It is there that the priest renews the sacrifice of Calvary and distributes his Body and Blood as spiritual food. "'Who then is that faithful and wise steward,' says Christ, 'whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food, in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing' (Luke 12:43). Now I infer from this passage, first, there are under the Gospel, especial dispensers of he Christian's spiritual food, in other words (if the word 'food' may be interpreted from the parallel of the sixth chapter of St. John), Dispensers of invisible grace, or Priests; next, that they are to continue to the church in every age till the end, for it is said, 'Blessed is he, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing (Luke 12: 43).'"¹⁷

The Cardinal had the highest estimation of the dignity of the priesthood but at the same time realized the frailty of the men called to this high office. He writes of this in perhaps his most complete and revealing sermon on the priesthood, "Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel:"

But still men they could not be, if they were to preachers of the everlasting Gospel, and dispensers of the divine mysteries. If they were to sacrifice, as He had sacrificed; to continue, repeat, apply, the very Sacrifice which He had offered; to take into their hands that very Victim which was He himself; to bind and to loose, to bless and to ban, to receive the confession of his people, and to give them absolution for their sins; to teach them the way of truth, and to guide them along the way of peace; who was sufficient for these things but an inhabitant of those blessed realms of which the Lord is the never failing Light?

And yet, my brethren, so it is, he has sent forth for the ministry of reconciliation, not Angels, but men "He has sent forth your brethren to you, not beings of some unknown nature and some strange blood, but of your own bone and your own flesh, to preach to you...Not a temptation, my brethren, can befall you, but what befalls all those who share your nature, though you may have yielded to it, and they may not have yielded. They can understand you, they can anticipate you, they can interpret you, though they have not kept pace with you in your course. They will be tender to you, they will 'instruct you in the spirit of meekness,' as the Apostles says, 'considering themselves lest they also be tempted.' Come then unto us, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls; come unto us, who now stand to you in Christ's stead, and who speak in Christ's name; for we too, like you, have been saved by Christ's all-saving blood."¹⁸

He generally had the highest opinion of his confreres in the Catholic priesthood, saying "there was nothing of that smoothness, or mannerism which is commonly imputed to them, and they were more natural and unaffected than many an Anglican clergy man... I was struck, when I had more opportunity in judging of the priests, by the simple faith in the Catholic Creed and system, of which they always gave evidence, and which they never seemed to feel, in any sense at all, to be a burden."¹⁹ Speaking of the Catholic priesthood as a whole through the centuries he says, "still that, on the whole, they had been, as a body, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, through the power of divine grace, and that thus, in spite of the frailty of human nature, they had fulfilled the blessed purposes of their institution."²⁰

Newman's desire, both for the priesthood and the laity, was that each live up fully to the privilege and duty of the high calling of being a Christian. No one who approaches the writings of Newman will be left unchallenged in bettering his relationship with God and neighbor. At the heart of Newman's message for today's Catholic is the sense of personal vocation." God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission-I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught, I shall do good. I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve him in my calling."²¹

Newman was man who suffered much because he loved much. This was exemplified in his pastoral work with souls and particularly in his largely unnoticed work as a parish priest both as an Anglican and as a Catholic. As the Holy Father put it in his letter, "In the end, therefore, what shines forth in Newman is the mystery of the Lord's Cross. This was the heart of his mission, the absolute truth which he contemplated, the 'kindly light' which led him on." How fitting in this bicentenary it is then that on this next Good Friday in Holy Week, the Holy Father will do the Stations of the Cross at the Coliseum in Rome using the text of none other than the Venerable John Henry Newman. Let us all pray that he soon be raised to the altars.

¹ Murray, O.S.B., Placid, Newman the Oratorian, (Gill and Macmillan, LTD., Dublin, 1968), pp.3-133. This study can serve as an introduction for further study into the theology of the priesthood as developed by Newman in his writings.
² C.O., Robinson, Jonathan, Newman and St. Philip Neri: The Quest for Sanctity, in Faith and Reason, (Front Royal, Va. XV, no. 4, Winter, 1989), pp. 13-41
³ L.G., pp. 327-9
⁴ Prepos., pp. 255-6
⁵ Prepos., pp.351-2
⁶ Froude, James Anthony, Short Studies on Great Subjects, fourth series (New York: Charles Scribner's & Sons, 1910), p.188
⁷ Mix, p. 246
⁸ P.S., 3, p. 304
⁹ Ess., 2, p. 173
¹⁰ Diff., 1, p. 2l7
¹¹ Directory on Ministry and Life of Priests, Congregation of the Clergy, (Vatican, 1994)
¹² P.S., 6, p. 242
¹³ Jfc., p. 198
¹⁴ P.S., 4, pp. 304-5
¹⁵ P.S., 2, pp. 306-307
¹⁶ P.S., 2, 25: pp. 309-310
¹⁷ P.S., 2, 25: p. 312
¹⁸ Mix., pp. 44-5, 60
¹⁹ Apo., p. 271
²⁰ Prepos., p. 339
²¹ M.D., p. 301