By Bishop James Conley
On Oct. 13, I have the blessing of joining thousands of people at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City for the canonization of Blessed John Henry Newman.
In the canonization of John Henry Newman, the Church recognizes his personal holiness and presents his life as worthy of imitation. Thus, it’s appropriate to reflect upon Newman’s writings on holiness and the life of prayer necessary to become holy.
Holiness, for Newman, begins with humility—a rejection of ego, self-promotion, and self-importance. Holiness is obedience to the command that we take the last place, choosing mortification and virtue in the face of even the small indignities and inconveniences of daily life.
Holiness mattered to Newman because he knew that the simplest acts of humility, charity, and mortification in our lives would have profound effects in the world’s great battle for souls. Newman knew that our humility is the weapon with which the Lord combats the enemy, prowling for souls like “a roaring lion.”
This was the wisdom of Blessed John Henry Newman: that the most meaningful and glorious battles in this life are those fought on the invisible and spiritual plain coveted by Satan and his minions, and won by Christ, his angels, and the saints.
Newman saw what we must remind ourselves on a daily basis—that the trials and conflicts and crosses in the temporal world are only the effects of spiritual battle which takes place all around us, but never in our sight.
We will see that our lives are glorious if we see that our humble smallness affects the most profound and unseen spiritual realities.
Holiness allows us to fight in the glorious invisible battle with evil that ends in Christ’s victory on the cross.
Newman would often say that “the invisible world is more real to me than the visible world, the world that I can see, touch and feel. For, the visible world is constantly disappearing and crumbling before my eyes. But the invisible world is ever expanding.”
Newman preached that “There is ever a supernatural work going on by which all that man thinks great is overcome, and what he despises prevails... the Saints are ever taking possession of the kingdom, and with the weapons of Saints. The invisible powers of the heavens, truth, meekness, and righteousness, are ever coming in upon the earth, ever pouring in, gathering, thronging, warring, triumphing, under the guidance of Him who ‘is alive and was dead, and is alive for evermore.’”
The most important battles of this world are the supernatural and hidden from sight. Christ calls us to fight them with him, and the Holy Spirit equips us to do so—with the weapons of humility, born out in the simplicity of everyday circumstances.
This awareness was at the center of the prayer life of Blessed John Henry Newman. In fact, becoming a “solider of Jesus Christ,” was the idea that impelled Newman to prayer.
Newman believed wholeheartedly in the efficacy of prayer. Even if he could not see the results, Newman was certain that his prayers were answered. He thought often of the words of St. Paul who wrote: “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
But it should be clear that Newman was not a contemplative, in the traditional way we understand that term. His life was very active from morning to night—he was engaged in apostolic work, in education, in administration and in theological and apologetic life. Newman might have been a mystic—but if he was a mystic, he was an active mystic, and his own prayer life is instructive for those who are active in apostolic work.
Newman was certain that the act of liturgical worship, celebrated beautifully and reverently, was by far the most formational component of the Church’s life. Liturgy, in a unique way, had the capacity to imprint the meaning of the faith on the believer, and configure hearts according to the Gospel.
The celebration of sacred liturgy, beautifully and reverently, draws us into a direct impression of the mystery of redemption. Beautiful liturgy points to the transcendent, and orients us to the spiritual realities of this world.
Newman was insistent that each day also include a fixed period for private prayer, most especially in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
He prescribed especially the rosary and other fixed devotions. These, he said, serve “to still emotion, to calm us, to remind us what and where we are, to lead us to a purer and serener temper, and to that deep unruffled love of God and man.”
Daily periods of fixed private prayer, for Newman, imparted a “tone and character” for the whole day, which facilitated more regular spontaneous prayer in small moments of need, trial, or vanity.
Newman’s private prayer was characterized, especially, by great lists of people for whom he would intercede. His lists were lengthy, and he tracked in notebooks how frequently he prayed for others. Intercession was the great power of the baptized, Newman believed.
Newman believed that this intercession, above all, set the believer into the spiritual battle that his brothers and sisters faced. To use it would be to participate in Christ’s own redeeming mission. To fail to intercede for others would be to become an “unworthy servant.”
We are all called by Christ to enter into spiritual battles, and we have been given the weapons of the saints for this battle—humility and mortification; the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and the power of intercessory prayer.
Let us pray for one another. Let us ask that we, like Newman, might see the unseen battle for souls. Let us work for the salvation of souls, with the “weapons of saints,” in that glorious battle, and in the glorious victory, of Christ’s death and holy resurrection.
