As a Quaker, I never grew up hearing about saints. The only exception would be to call some of the authors of the New Testament saints. For example, folks often talked about St. Paul or one of the evangelists, such as St. John. Since I never went to Catholic colleges, it was not often I would even hear about luminaries in church history referred to as saints. For example, it would be Augustine, instead of St. Augustine. Of course, if someone else called him St. Augustine or referred to St. Thomas Aquinas, I knew exactly whom they were talking about.
As I become more concentrated in the study of Christian history, I learned more about saints. I understand some why the Catholic Church engaged the process of declaring some people to be saints. Even though the Apostle Paul in the first verses of his letter to the Romans tells us we are all called to be saints, I know what the Catholic Church was doing was singling out a few people who had extraordinary status as saints. And I understand a little about the process the Catholic Church use to name people a saint of God.
Essentially, a Pope nominates someone to enter the process which can lead to becoming declared a saint. The nominating process proclaims the potential saint to be a servant of God. There are a number of criteria that will be pursued to see if they apply to the servant of God. After a while and more investigations, the person will be declared venerable. The next step in the process is the beatification stage. It is now declared that the person is blessed. And if all the criteria are met, finally the Pope declares a person a saint.
I was fascinated to watch this process unfold for Mother Teresa. In my lifetime, this wonderful woman from Macedonia, a province in modern Greece made her way to India to serve the poorest of the poor. She was often referenced in everyday conversation as a model of humility, service and love. I never met her, but actually am fairly good friends with someone who knew her fairly well. He is a priest and participated in the beatification Mass for her.
And now again, a person I have long admired has been declared a saint. This is a nineteenth man from England. He is perhaps about as different from Mother (Saint) Teresa as can be. John Henry Newman first came to my attention in a Church History class. He was a scholar, a fairly privileged man from England who wound up following his conscience and leading an extraordinary, surprising life.
Newman was born in London in 1801 to a well-to-do banker. He was studying at Oxford by the time he was sixteen. He was an Anglican (Episcopalian in this country) and was ordained an Anglican priest by the Church of England. He became a scholar of Christian theology. He was diligent in his own faith journey. He joined the Oxford Movement, a well-known group of folks at Oxford University---and other places. He was interested in retrieving some of the Catholic ideas that he had come to know so well through his studies and writing.
Through the process of his thought and life, he became more convinced the Catholic Church was where his heart was and where God was calling him to be. So in 1845 he risked all the perks and privileges he had as an Oxford don and converted to the Catholic Church. This sparked discussion and controversy. He became a Catholic priest, moved to Birmingham and served Birmingham’s poor as a parish priest.
He may have been a parish priest, but he was still a scholar. He continued to write and was a major influence---some would say the most outstanding nineteenth century British scholar---on Catholicism and Christianity as a whole. He died in 1890, having left an amazing legacy. His legacy influenced me in some ways. I read some of his scholarship in my own graduate studies. I spent a little less than a year in Birmingham, England and visited a number of places where Newman left his own mark.
Perhaps Newman is best-known for his poem, “Lead Kindly Light,” penned in 1833. The first few lines are touching. “Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from him, Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see, The distant scene; one step enough for me.” I find these words consoling and encouraging at the same time.
Newman was important to me because he modeled both the ability to relate to the common person and to be a servant of God. He also had the capacity for deep, creative thinking about faith and articulating it in ways that helped thoughtful people understand faith in both its historical, traditional context, but interpreted for a more contemporary context. He was a scholar and a priest.
None of us will be saints like Mother Teresa or John Henry Newman. But with their canonization as saints, we all are reminded of what’s possible and, perhaps, what God expects. It’s a lifetime project, which we do one day at a time.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/10/13/pope-francis-canonizes-five-new-saints-including-john-henry-newman
https://spiritualdirection.com/2012/04/01/lead-kindly-light
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