All those who are impatient to see John Henry Newman assume his rightful place as a Doctor of the Church will welcome this book. It is the first of a two-volume project and presents Newman in relation to his age; the second will explore aspects of his writings in greater detail. As such, it is aimed at a general readership rather than a scholarly one. Newman would have rejoiced at this, not because he cared for fame for its own sake, but because he loved the Church and, unusually for his times, when lay people were perceived as subordinate within a dominant clerical culture, recognised the pressing need for an educated, informed, confident and articulate Catholic laity.

Twelve writers have contributed chapters that discuss both the places that are associated with Newman – Oxford, Littlemore, Rome, Birmingham and Dublin – and the different facets of his richly varied and productive life, such as his preaching, educating and letter-writing. For those who know something of Newman’s place within the Oxford movement and his celebrated conversion in 1845, but who are not familiar with the later half of his life, it will provide an excellent introduction to a fascinating figure. I hope that it will also further the cause of this saintly man.

For Newman comes alive in these chapters, most especially, it seems to me, as a pastor and a poet. By pastor I mean that behind all his activities and his writings lay one overriding concern: his zeal for souls; by poet I mean not so much his actual writing of verse – though he had a fine poetic ear and Gladstone, on receiving a copy of his poems, declared he had read it “several times and more” - but the beauty, rhythm and musicality that touched his pen when he wrote in prose and which so forcibly struck his listeners when he preached.

Writing of Newman as a young tutor at Oriel College, Oxford, Peter Nockles notes that he recognised the tutorial office “possessed an inherent moral, spiritual and pastoral dimension”. Newman himself wrote, “I considered a College tutor to have the care of souls”. Unusually for a distinguished academic, he also took his responsibilities for the small, poor and entirely undistinguished parish of Littlemore with great seriousness, believing “I have the responsibility of souls on me”. He visited his parish, either on horseback on in a fly, two or three times a week, despite his other, onerous duties and was great loved by his parishioners. Indeed the parish clerk, Richard Humphries, visiting him many years later in Birmingham, was greeted by the famous Oratorian with, “Come in and tell me about my dear people” - one of many anecdotes showing the enduring effect Newman had on those who met him.

Leaving Littlemore in 1846 was, as Sister Mary-Birgit Dechant shows, a painful but necessary parting. Newman, a man of great sensibility, evidenced by the motto he chose as cardinal, “Heart speaks to heart”, kissed the bed and mantelpiece of the place that had given him refuge and where he had been received, without pomp or ceremony, into the Church. And so, after a brief period in Rome, he returned to England and to Birmingham where he was to remain for the rest of his long life.

Fr Daniel Seward of the Oxford Oratory provides the answer to the question: why the Oratorian Order – and, a greater curiosity, why Birmingham? Newman had thought of joining other Orders but when he finally encountered the charism of St Philip Neri it was decisive: “An Oratory is a family and a home; a domestic circle”, he wrote. As St Philip stayed in Rome, so Newman stayed in Birmingham. I always chuckle at the remark Jane Austen puts into the mouth of Mrs Elton in Emma: “One has no great hopes for Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound”. For Newman, the city at the heart of the industrial revolution was where providence had placed him; some years later he was to issue a stern rebuke to Mgr George Talbot who had wanted him to come and preach in Rome: “Birmingham people have souls.”

The chapter contributed by Fr Paul Chavasse of the Birmingham Oratory, “Newman the Preacher”, gives the reader a glimpse of the magnetic effect the man had on those privileged to listen to him. From the time when he instituted a 4 o’clock sermon on Sunday afternoons at St Mary’s Church in Oxford - a congregation that grew from small beginnings to nearly 600 people - to the sermons he preached later in the Oratory church and to the boys of the Oratory School in Edgbaston, all the recorded reminiscences of his listeners echo the same response. Matthew Arnold’s description of “that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light” is justly famous, but there are many less well-known people who recorded similarly eloquent impressions of the musicality, the poetry, timbre of voice, aura and intensity of the preacher. Newman used vivid, concrete illustrations; he was steeped in Scripture and possessed acute psychological insights; above all - as those who heard John Paul II preach have similarly testified - he had the gift of seeming to address each listener personally. His friend Froude recalled, “He told us what he believed to be true”. For Fr Chavasse the enduring popularity of Newman’s published sermons shows him simply to have been “a father of souls.”

Paul Shrimpton, a teacher at Magdalen College School, demonstrates in his chapter “Newman the Educator” how original for the times he lived in were Newman’s ideas on education. In Dublin and later at the Oratory School which he founded, Newman emphasised trust, friendship, pastoral care, a close rapport with parents and the need for relaxation as well as academic work. The boys referred to him affectionately as “Old Jack” and he, in turn, interested himself in every aspect of their school life. He believed in educating laymen, “fit for this world while it trained them for another” - a contrast both to the model of a junior seminary and the great Anglican public schools of the day.

As well as being engaged in school life, theological writing and parish work, Newman was a supreme exponent of the art of letter-writing. He himself firmly believed that “A man’s life lies in his letters”. Joyce Sugg, touching on this aspect of his life, argues that the late Fr Stephen Dessain’s decision to publish all the thousands of extant letters, rather than a selection, was the right one, for they reveal a more personal side to Newman’s genius, the variety of tones he adopted to suit his huge range of recipients and his impressionistic, poetical responses to places and experiences.

Such a brief summary cannot do justice to what this slim book – hardly more than 250 pages – manages to achieve: without introducing new material it brings together so much of what made Newman the distinctive person he was. Like all saints, he stands both within and beyond his age. Prescient in his understanding of the role of the laity, he was prophetic in many other areas of the Church’s life. He was also a deeply lovable human being. Perhaps the most moving tribute to his memory I have met with and one which shows most clearly the universality of his appeal comes from a devout, working-class family from Birmingham. The proud parents of 14 children, one of their sons was born with Down’s syndrome. What did they christen him? John Henry.

© 2007 Francis Phillips

Theotokos Catholic Books - Book Reviews Section - www.theotokos.org.uk