Fr. John Utecht, associate pastor at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Edina, Minnesota reflects on Newman's Catholic era (1849) sermon "Illuminating Grace".  He highlights Newman in that it is only through the ongoing action of the Holy Spirit that we find the fullness of the truth. We need illuminating Grace to fully understand things. Reason has immense power to calculate but is limited to the human mind looking at the material world. The love of the dying Jesus on the Cross looks "unreasonable". Yet, Newman and Fr. John remind us that it is the greatest act of love ever made. Grace comes into us to enliven our faith where our reason fails. Newman illustrates that reason without faith is but an opinion. Since it is truly never decided the end of reason is doubt where the end of faith is love.

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Fr. Robert Lisowski from the University of Notre Dame draws key insights from Newman's Advent sermon, "Watching". Newman tells us that we must be watchful everyday of our lives - watchful as to how God breathes His love into our lives and how we respond to that love. Watchfulness involves a consistent, expectant focus on God. Without this focus our eyes move inward and we tend to miss the small advents of our lives. This self-absorption elevates things of this world leaving us ultimately unsatisfied. Without watchfulness goodness is limited to a  worldly definition. Newman calls us to something more. We are not called to merely advance in this world rather we are called to mount toward holiness. The lack of watchfulness can lead to a "rusting" of the soul. Rust on a soul clouds and discolors the mirror within that is meant to reflect Christ. Rubbing off this rust, by embracing the Cross, permits the light of Christ to shine offering an advent of hope to the world. This hope is realized by being watchful for the coming of Christ - "life is short: death is certain; and the world to come is everlasting". 

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Brother Bobby McFadden, a religious brother in training with the Congregation of the Holy Cross (with a PhD in Augustine studies), reflects on Newman’s sermon “Faith and Love”. To have an authentic faith is to love. If we have the love of God then the faith that we have is genuine, real. Love then is the sign of our faith. Newman helps us see faith as the beginning of religion – the belief in God’s omnipotence, His almighty power. We delight in God because He is good – His commandments are good. We can only obey the Lawgiver if we have the pure love of an infant since we are born with that seed of holiness. Here Brother Bobby highlights Newman’s insight on faith and works. We engage the world with faith while love is the internal dwelling of God. Love is the condition of faith and faith in turn is matures love – it brings out love into works and therefore is called the root of the works of love. The substance of the works is love – the outline and direction of them is faith. The Blessed Mother’s conviction that all things are possible with God (omnipotence) matures the love that moves her to say “Yes”. It is in the blessed Mother where Newman sees the unity of faith and works. If we don’t love God all works mean nothing because the love of God is our fundamental nature. Our need to see God is realized through the lens of love. It is charity that brought Christ down – charity is but another name for The Comforter. God became human out of His love for us. When we love, we enter into that Divine love that is our destiny. We are Christ’s by love. 

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Dr. David Deavel, an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas - Houston (after coming from The Center of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota) reflects on Newman's sermon "Promising without Doing". Like Newman, Dr. Deavel sees his own journey from Evangelical Protestantism to the Catholic Church as an addition of the truths he understood prior to becoming Catholic. Dr. Deavel helps us to appreciate Newman's understanding of the relationship of our "doing" (works) with our faith in Christ. Together, St. John Henry Newman and Dr. Deavel, place our identity in Christ at the center of how we live and journey in the presence of God. 

To learn more of Dr. Deavel work go to "The Imaginative Conservative" at https://theimaginativeconservative.org

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Dr. John Crosby, distinguished philosopher from Franciscan University and Newman scholar gives his insights into Newman's deeply personal sermon "Mysteriousness of our Present Being".  In this sermon Newman shows (and Dr. Crosby explains) that the profoundest truths of our existence are commonly mysterious. For instance, the reality of the union of the body and soul is a mystery that we readily accept (at least we used to).  Newman's offers universally accepted examples of mysteries as an argument to accept the mystery of God.  Once we accept these mysteries of our present being we are faced with the choice of either openly approaching the mystery of God with acceptance and wonder or skeptically questioning Divine mysteries because the limits of our overly rational human mind prevents us from discovering something greater than ourselves. Dr. Crosby points out that when we make our own mind the measure of all things we naturally refuse the delight found in mystery. The consequences of this refusal can have dangerous consequences in the eventual loss of human dignity by the destruction of the unity of the body and soul. 

If you'd like to learn more of Dr. Crosby's insights into the existential character of Newman thought go to his marvelous text The Personalism of St. John Henry Newman.
https://www.amazon.com/Personalism-John-Henry-Newman/dp/0813229170.  

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Blair Saiz, wife and mother of three young girls, learns from Newman's sermon "The Invisible World" that focusing on the invisible world changes the way we live.  This is evident in how children easily come to know of their own angels and saints through their tremendous ability to wonder.  It is in this world where, despite our own worldly whims, we come to realize that angels and saints are always working for us. Newman's own imagination helps us see that as nature springs eternal it reflects God and His own nature. This gives us reason to rejoice always as what God created is very good. 

As a busy mother Blair (and her husband Jordan) manage a lifestyle brand for women - The Village Green which brings beauty of the past into everyday living through online home goods, handmade jewelry, art, a regular blog and weekly music playlists. This project aims to lead the heart to Truth through beauty. You can find Blair's work at https://shopthevillagegreen.com

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Episode 24 Season 1 – “The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World”

Bishop James Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska shares with us his conversion story as a journey with friends and St. John Henry Newman. He sees Newman’s sacramental imagination (an efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us) as pointing to something beyond ourselves as an imprint of our Creator. It is the through efficacious signs, like the Cross of Christ, that everything makes sense as the Divine life is dispensed to us. By understanding what the Cross means for us we come to understand everything in the here and now. Newman helps us realize that Christ’s most powerful moment was when he died on the Cross. When we find our meaning in the Cross - we die to ourselves, and Christ becomes alive in us. The Cross enables the ability to engage the heart. It is the heart that moves us to act. Next to supernatural Grace, the greatest force on earth is the example of virtue in another person. “Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion”.

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

In the midst of our Eucharistic Revival, Archbishop Bernard Hebda discusses Newman’s 1838 sermon “The Eucharistic Presence”. His Excellency finds Johannine depth in Newman‘s precise spiritual thought. Like John the Evangelist, Newman leads us to a deeper “awe, admiration and hope” of Christ’s Eucharistic Presence by recognizing that all other miracles of Christ pale in comparison to the love Jesus shows for us in the Eucharist. The Archbishop of St Paul and Minneapolis sees Newman‘s plea for “a thirst for his presence” producing a joy on “hearing that he is to be found under the veil of sensible things” as an aid for our own Eucharistic revival by helping us find our “reward in believing”. 

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Laura Miller, co-founder of "Newman on Tap", offers her Marian insights as together we celebrate ten years of "Newman on Tap" started upon our 2013 co-graduation with masters degrees in Catholic Studies from The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.  As a young mother of three children, Laura finds Newman offering insights into how Mary's supreme sanctity could repair our distorted understanding of what it truly means to be fully woman and fully man. As usual Newman draws from comprehensive sources; Scripture, tradition, prayer and the teachings of The Catholic Church to point us to the great principle - celebrating the glories of our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God. 

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site. 

Dr. David Delio offers insight into Newman's call for all of us to an integration of our heart, mind and will as a path to holiness by loving God and our neighbor. "Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training" cleverly positions St. Monica as an image of faith and St. Augustine as an image of the intellect.  Newman artfully looks at their lives to explain that without a harmony of our religious and intellectual lives our search for truth is limited and moves towards skepticism. Dr. Delio sheds light on Newman's  understanding that knowledge begins in belief and not doubt. Since skepticism begins in doubt it limits our scope as tarting point, rather, the fullness of truth is discovered through the faith due to its broad and deep reach into the unknown. With faith as our origin we able experience an integrated growth oriented to God. 

For further reading on the integration of faith and reason explore Dr. Delio's text An Aristocracy of Exalted Spirits: The Idea of the Church in Newman's Tamworth Reading Room. To learn more of Dr. Delio's innovative offering for an integrated education check out "The Newman Idea" at www.newmanidea.org.

To approach Newman's majestic thought it is highly recommended to download the formatted sermon at www.newmanontap.com. Comments and suggestions are appreciated on the same site.