Notable Quote: What the Church Needs by John Henry Newman

Here is another distinctive quote by this wonderful prose writer.

 

“What we need at present for our Church's well-being, is not invention, nor originality, nor sagacity, nor even learning in our divines, at least in the first place, though all gifts of God are in a measure needed, and never can be unseasonable when used religiously, but we need peculiarly a sound judgment, patient thought, discrimination, a comprehensive mind, an abstinence from all private fancies and caprices and personal tastes,—in a word, Divine Wisdom."

 

In the first main clause he provides a list of negatives (“not, nor, etc.) of what the Church doesn’t need.  Then he pauses with a subordinate clause qualifying those negatives before he gives a second main clause providing a list of what it does need, including an “abstinence” which is another form of negation.  Then he tops it off with a summation, “Divine Wisdom.”  That is just so beautiful. 

Notable Quote: Sacred Texts and Doctrine by St. John Henry Newman

At Catholic Thought Book Club at Goodreads, we’re reading St. John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, his great autobiography on his evolution to Roman Catholicism.  If Apologia were a work of fiction, it would be considered a Bildungsroman, that is a story about the development of a young man to who he became in maturity.  Perhaps after St. Augustine’s Confessions, Apologia is the greatest autobiographical conversion story in history.  Of course I will be posting on it once our read is over, but for now I want to post what I think is a great observation and a memorable quote.  This quote comes from the very first chapter, which details his beliefs and works up to the age of thirty-two.  The context of the quote is while speaking of a particular mentor of his at Oxford, a Dr. Hawkins.  Most certainly an Anglican, Dr. Hawkins had a very High Church theology.  He impressed this understanding upon the young Newman.

 

 “The sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies of the Church.”

 

Now you can see how this understanding of scripture would be an undermining of Protestant rudiments.  Certainly with this understanding, the Bible could not stand alone, and obviously you would need a “Church” to instruct you on the doctrine. 

Newman places himself under Dr. Hawkins between the years 1822 to 1825, which would span his twenty-first to twenty-fourth years.  He would convert to Roman Catholicism in 1845 at the age of forty-four, some twenty years later.

Matthew Monday: Easter Mass

I took Matthew to Easter Mass yesterday.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, but he just looked so adorable.  He had on a stripped green and white, long sleeved polo shirt and tan slacks.  He just looks so handsome with his dark hair combed nicely. 

I think this was his third mass, other than his baptism.  The first two times we sat in what my church sort of isolates as a section for people with children, in the back corner with glass encasing.  I've never seen anything like that in any other church, but it's helpful for noisy kids.  Those two times we stayed through the homily and credo.  That's about the point he couldn't help being too active.  There's only so much constraint a two or three year old can take.

This time I took him into the main pews to where I normally sit.  I kind of wanted to show him off to the people who normally sit around me.  I will say he was very shy, but he did talk to the woman who normally sits next to me.  I don't even know her name, and yet we're usually both there every Sunday.  I do know she's a grandmother, and she started talking to him like a grandmother, and Matthew just loved it.  I told her he was adopted, and she in turn said she had been adopted as a child.  Isn't that something? 

What hooks Matthew with church is the music.  He doesn't understand anything else, but he does listen intently, hoping to hear a song he knows.  He keeps wanting to hear "The Wheels On the Bus," LOL!  No he didn't hear it.  The other two times at Mass I had to leave because I thought Matthew was getting a bit rambunctious.  This time, sitting in the crowded pews on a packed Easter Mass, he got intimidated and began to well up and cry.  It was a silent crying.  He pushed his head into me and his hands covered his eyes.  And when it got to the standing parts I had to pick him up and hold him. 

I got him to stop crying by taking out a pen and paper from my jacket pocket and having him scribble.  He did it quietly, thank God.  I got the idea from two children slightly older who were sitting two pews ahead who had crayons.  On the kneeling parts during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I had to kneel on one knee and put him on my other.  Try that some time.  And then I got him to shake hands on the sign of the peace.  He was shy but I think he liked that.  There were two teenage girls sitting behind me that I think were ogling him the whole time and insisted on shaking his hand.  He's got such a way with the ladies. :)

We left when everyone was going up to receive communion.  He almost made it through the whole mass.  Next time I think I'll have him sit by the organist and choir.  I think that will keep him interested longer.