Imagine: I finished 8th grade and was sitting in a tiny office…window across the desk, windowed door behind me. Two chairs. Cyril Gombold, Maryknoll, me and the Baltimore Catechism. Number 3. It is 1960.  In Honolulu. Sacred Heart Church, Punahou. I go the school named that across the street from the parish. Fr. Gombold makes [...]

Feb. 28, 1860 “It is good for me to have trials—and I am in a state of chronic trial, which only those who come very close to me know. This has been the way with me for many years, the clouds of one kind or another returning after the rain, or, as I have before [...]

I said a few post awhile back that I would post a little series from Newman’s letters in the 1860s when (in private) we know he was severely depressed after 15 years a Catholic and constantly abused and shelved. He had real difficulty getting up in the morning. This is in a private journal called [...]

When John Henry Newman was 60 he faced a serious and prolonged crisis in his life. He had been a Catholic for 15 years and was so depressed he could hardly get out bed in the morning. An account of this is in his Autobiographical Writings which were only published once 50 years ago. I [...]

Therefore

Long before I went off to Oxford to work on John Henry Newman’s Via Media, I had copied out this still valid, still prophetic…piece on the Church once described as without a spot, without a wrinkle… But in truth the whole course of Christianity from the first, when we come to examine it, is but [...]

In 1990 I copied out this quotation from John Henry Newman: Time clears up all errors: the untruth of today is driven out by the contrary untruth of tomorrow, and the many-coloured impressions of particular minds are all eventually absorbed by the consistent light of truth. He also said that God takes thousand years to [...]

Images. Religious images. Even now there is one serious favorite and it bothers me: light and dark. This is must be carefully understood. It is biblical so it cannot be discounted. But the Bible is not dualistic and we are. So we can take an image from a non-dualistic culture and use it to re-inforce [...]

There was an article somewhere that was forwarded to me about Newman: was he gay? was he crypto-authoritarian reactionary? Was he both? What did I think? I recommended to the inquirer that a good read of Newman’s Letters and Diaries would be a good start. As there are over 30 volumes of these, a quick [...]

Peter Cromwell’s new book on John Henry Newman, The Unquiet Grave, happens to be a very engaging introduction to the Oratorian English genius who is going to be beatified this September when the Pope comes to England. His chapter on Newman’s autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita, is especially helpful. (Apologia you know means a defense, not [...]