The cumulative effect of the theological debates at Oxford, together with his pastoral experience and personal reflections, gradually led Newman to a more high church ecclesiological approach, especially on visibility, invisibility, and apostolicity of the church.
Patricia O’Leary’s The Gentleman Saint (Gracewing, 2020) is a short and delightful introduction to John Henry Newman.
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.
It's one of Newman's most notorious lines, and a claim I for one wish were untrue: "The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse."
As someone who has studied John Henry Newman's writings for years, it was surreal for me to attend his canonization in Rome. I've known for some time now that Newman was interceding for me and my loved ones in heaven, but to have a tangible confirmation of that fact was moving beyond words.
In a letter from 1863 to his sister Jemima, John Henry Newman remarked that "a man's life lies in his letters." Equally revealing, perhaps—at least in Newman's case—are the prayers that he composed and recited.
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