Newman almost died as a young man, still an Anglican, during travels in Sicily. While in recovery he had his first real encounters with Catholics and the Mass. When he was well enough to return to England, he resolved that he would use his renewed strength to enter more deeply into his service of the truth with new vigor. This resolve would materialize into the Oxford Movement–Newman’s attempt to draw the Church of England more deeply into its Catholic roots.
On the boat ride home, Newman wrote his most famous poem:
The Pillar of the Cloud
LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
At Sea. June 16, 1833.
God would lead Newman on with kindly patience and grace, despite persecution from the Church of England and loss of many friends. He entered the Catholic Church on October 9th 1845, hence the date of his feast day. Newman described his conversion as his entrance into a safe harbor, fitting as the fruit of Newman’s trust in God’s kindly light. Not that this harbor was particularly tranquil. Newman was suspected by some in the Church and he would have to fight both legal and ecclesiastical battles.
Newman’s canonization this Sunday, October 13th, will be a momentous day for the Church. He remains a true lamp–reflecting God’s kindly light on a number of key issues for the Church. Newman converted because he recognized the need for an authority to teach clearly and defend God’s revelation, an authority he found only in the Catholic Church. We need Newman’s defense of the Church’s magisterial authority and clarity (see Apologia pro vita sua, chapter 5), as well as his teaching on this authority’s relationship to conscience (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk). He also points to the genuine development of doctrine in contrast to its corruption through innovation (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine). He is better known for his influence on Catholic higher education, as our Newman Centers are named for him, and his The Idea of a University has much to teach us in our efforts to renew our Catholic schools and universities.
Newman’s imagination, however, captures the ultimate stakes of life’s pilgrimage. Although we could get distracted by the current political climate in the Church, we must remember that our goal is, as the epitaph on Newman’s headstone stated, to move Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem – out of shadows and phantasms into the truth, particularly in the vision of this Truth face to face in Heaven. Nonetheless, Newman uses precisely the phantasms of his imagination to make that point. If “The Pillar of Cloud” could be considered Newman’s most widely known poem, one which is still sung as a hymn today, the long poem, The Dream of Gerontius, would be considered his poetic masterpiece.
Written in 1865, it is not a looking ahead in hope to the Lord’s guidance in this life, but a tale of the continuation of the journey into the afterlife. Gerontius lies dying at the beginning of the poem, surrounding by his friends and a priest praying for him on his deathbed. As he sees death coming on, he seeks to rouse himself to prepare for it:
Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;
And through such waning span
Of life and thought as still has to be trod,
Prepare to meet thy God.
And while the storm of that bewilderment
Is for a season spent,
And, ere afresh the ruin on me fall,
Use well the interval.
We can relate to Gerontius here, looking forward to an impending journey, though in the midst of the storm. He soon passes away and, meeting his guardian angel, embarks on a different journey to meet his judgment, though his must pass through a cacophony of demons before meeting choirs of angels. After being prepared by his angel and meeting his judgment, Gerontius embraces his allotted time in purgatory:
There, motionless and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn,—
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn.
His guardian responds, depositing him “o’er the penal waters”:
Softly and gently, dearly-ransom’d soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
In a stroke of genius, an English, Catholic composer set selections of Newman’s poem to music as an oratorio. Edward Elgar (1857-1934), of Pomp and Circumstance fame, amazingly composed a piece of music on purgatory, known by the same name as the poem, that still finds a place in performance repertoire today. Elgar powerfully captured Gerontius’ varying emotions and experiences, a difficult task given their eschatological character, as well as the ethereal nature of angels and din of the demons.
Enjoy this performance of The Dream of Gerontius in celebration of Newman’s canonization, which captures his eternal hope of moving from shadows into the realities of heaven:
A final note on the two images I chose to accompany this piece: the header, Chischister Canal (1828) and the image above, Flint Castle (1838). Both images are by the English painter, J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), whose life overlapped with Newman. I chose them for their connection of light over the water, reassuring with its peacefulness and invitation to the journey.
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