Newman: The Heart of Holiness

Description

Newman: The Heart of Holiness looks at the model of holiness Newman offers us to us all, on the occasion of his canonisation, a moment the Church recognises officially that Newman offers a model of holiness that is relevant for the Universal Church. Newman himself, in fact, said, 'I have nothing of the saint about me'. The Church, however, has decided otherwise and in October this year Blessed John Henry Newman, poet, tractarian, academic, former Anglican, Catholic convert and Cardinal will be canonised by Pope Francis. In this book, Roderick Strange brings his own lifetime of learning and studying of Newman together with newer material that has come to light since the beatification to offer a portrait of Newman's interior life. That is, his intimacy with God and his understanding of Christ, which led him to rejoice in the gift of the Eucharist, and he explores how Newman's interior life had its outworking in his pastoral ministry serving others. This understanding of Newman's spirituality and legacy, suggests the author, might offer us an apologia for our own times, one in which we realise the connection between the sacred and the secular, one in which our faith can sustain us through the inevitable troubles of life, and in which we can cultivate a perceptiveness peculiar to faith, a perceptiveness that helps us recognise the gifts of the Spirit we have received as people who 'watch for Christ'. This book, therefore, is an attempt to peel back the layers of Newman's spirituality so as to explore respectfully the heart of his holiness.

The Right Reverend Monsignor Roderick Strange was born in 1945 and ordained priest in 1969 following preparation at the Venerable English College, Rome. From 1970 he was working on Cardinal Newman's understanding of Christ at Oriel College, Oxford, and completed his doctorate in 1974. It was published as Newman and the Gospel of Christ (Oxford, 1981). Since then he has written and lectured on Newman extensively and has worked as an adviser to the BBC, most notably during the papal visit to the UK in 2010 when Newman was beatified. He continues to write regularly for The Times and to lecture and direct retreats around the world. Since 2015, he has held the post of Professor of Theology at St Mary's University, Twickenham, the only faith-based university within the London area.

I have not been unsympathetic to Newman since I first discovered him in my late teens. But, for a long time now (possibly all the 32 years I have served as a priest in the CofE) I have been resistant, knowing quite a lot about him, but appreciating him, as it were, at a distance. Your book has changed all that, and enabled me to open the door wide; and for that I'm immensely grateful. Like a two-edged sword slipping in between soul and spirit, it spoke to me not just because you've written it so fluently, but because I've seen the whole man for the first time, the whole heart of the man, and felt what anchored him, and how deep over the years that anchor sank. -- Bishop Jonathan Goodall Roderick Strange has gift for writing about complex matters in a graceful and accessible way. * Archbishop of Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Brisbane * 'His text flows effortlessly and its message is conveyed with clarity, very much in the way that Newman recommended for preachers.' -- Stella Fletcher * TLS * Stunning writing . . . simple and accessible prose that left me wanting more. * Fr John Chalmers, Priest and scholar of the Archdiocese of Brisbane *