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St. John Henry Newman
October 21, 2019
Courtney Mares
Catholic News Agency
VATICAN CITY – Nearly two centuries ago, John Henry Newman was England’s most well-known Anglican priest, until he risked everything to become a Catholic. On Oct. 13, 2019, he became a saint.
In his homily at the canonization Mass, Pope Francis told Catholics the goal of life is a transforming encounter with Jesus.
“The ultimate goal is not health or wellness, but the encounter with Jesus. He alone frees us from evil and heals our hearts. Only an encounter with him can save, can make life full and beautiful,” the pope said.
Pope Francis officially recognized John Henry Newman, Mariam Thresia, Marguerite Bays, Giuseppina Vannini and Dulce Lopes as saints.
“Today we give thanks to the Lord for our new saints. They walked by faith and now we invoke their intercession,” he said.
Pope Francis read a quote from one of Newman’s sermons describing the holiness of daily life: “The Christian has a deep, silent, hidden peace, which the world sees not... The Christian is cheerful, easy, kind, gentle, courteous, candid, unassuming; has no pretense... with so little that is unusual or striking in his bearing, that he may easily be taken at first sight for an ordinary man.”
Newman was a 19th-century theologian, poet, Catholic priest and cardinal. Born in 1801, he was before his conversion a well-known and well-respected Oxford academic, Anglican preacher and public intellectual.
His 1845 conversion to the Catholic faith was controversial in England, and resulted in the loss of many friends, including his own sister who never spoke to him again. He became a priest in 1847 and founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England.
Newman was particularly dedicated to education, founding two schools for boys and the Catholic University of Ireland. He was made a cardinal in 1879 and died in Birmingham in 1890 aged 89.
Father Daniel Donohoo, president-rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University and a devotee of St. John Henry Newman, told Catholic San Francisco that one of the most remarkable things about the newly canonized saint was his devotion to divine providence.
Divine providence, for Newman, was that “even though we often cannot understand what’s going on in our lives, that’s really not our business. Our business is about submitting to God and trusting that God has purposes that go far beyond our ability to comprehend,” Father Donohoo said.
Despite the misfortunes Newman encountered – major illnesses, character attacks and mistreatment by the Catholic hierarchy in England – “he never lost sense of that divine providence.”
That attitude can be important today, he said, in a post-modern world in which “often we think our story is just our story. He believes our stories are much more important than they appear because they are part of God’s story.”
Father Donohoo said Catholics can also take inspiration from Newman’s emphasis on personal witness of the Christian life.
“He believed that one of the great features of holiness was a certain consistency and peace in one’s life and that when people saw these things in an individual they would be moved by that,” he said.
Along with Newman, Pope Francis canonized four women.
Mother Mariam Thresia (1876-1926) was an Indian mystic and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family.
Giuseppina Vannini (1859-1911) was a religious sister from Rome known for founding the congregation of the Daughters of St. Camillus dedicated to serving the sick and suffering. Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (1914-1992) founded the largest charitable organization in Brazil providing healthcare, welfare, and education service.
Pope Francis said that these religious women saints show us that the consecrated life is “a journey of love at the existential peripheries of the world.”
“Saint Marguerite Bays, on the other hand, was a seamstress; she speaks to us of the power of simple prayer, enduring patience and silent self-giving,” the pope said. “That is how the Lord made the splendor of Easter radiate in her life.”
Nicholas Wolfram Smith contributed to this article.