A we enter into Holy week, we can keep in mind Newman’s admonition against subtle sins and emotional prayers. God asks for our self-surrender.

Newman, like Cardinal Fisher before him, and John the Baptist before Fisher, lived in the spirit and power of Elijah.

When we read the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, we have the opportunity to reflect on ourselves.

This final of three posts covers the last part of Newman’s important sermon, The Developments of Religious Doctrine.  Newman will end the sermon asserting that although dogmas about God are very imperfect they constitute true knowledge. He considers developments in doctrine regarding the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation. He begins by pointing out that here […]

Newman wishes to show how faith and reason work closely together. As St. Augustine had said centuries earlier faith seeks understanding.

Newman's love of Nature, his love of friends, his love of the Catholic Church were all because he loved God, for whom they were intimations.

Implicit faith, or trust in God and the Church, forms the foundation, while explicit reasoning enriches and defends belief.

Everywhere in our culture we are urged to be ourselves, to buck the system, to express our unique individuality, to break the glass ceiling, to stand up and stand out and stand apart. In obeying God, we will certainly do some of these things, and people around us may be offended. But there is no virtue in individual expression or in offending others, only in obedience to God.

Newman teaches that God who is faithful does not tempt men. We are moral agents responsible for our actions. We should not try to rid ourselves of responsibility, transferring our guilt for wrong acts to other agents.

With our Lord so close to us, residing in our souls, how can we be anything but joyful?