<em>Festivals in Faith: Sermons for the Liturgical Year</em>
<em>By St John Henry Newman</em>
<em>Edited by Melinda Nielsen</em>
<em>The Cenacle Press, £24.00</em>
“Our Saviour’s birth in the flesh is an earnest and, as it were, beginning of our birth in the Spirit,” said St John Henry Newman in the opening words of a sermon preached in Oxford during the Christmas season of 1837.
Christmas, he said, is a “figure, promise, or pledge of our new birth, and it effects what it promises”.
“As He was born, so are we born also; and since He was born, therefore we too are born. As He is the Son of God by nature, so are we sons of God by grace, and it is He who has made us such.”
England’s newest saint concludes his homily by describing Christmas a time “for innocence, and purity, and gentleness, and mildness, and contentment, and peace”.
“It is a time in which the whole Church seems decked in white, in her baptismal robe, in the bright and glistering raiment which she wears on the Holy Mount,” he continued. “Christ comes at other times with garments dyed in blood; but now He comes to us in all serenity and peace, and He bids us rejoice in Him, and to love one another. This is not a time for gloom, or jealousy, or care or indulgence or excess, or licence: – not for ‘rioting and drunkenness’, not for ‘chambering or wantonness’, not for ‘strife and envying’, as says the Apostle; but for putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘who knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth’.
“May each Christmas, as it comes, find us more and more like Him, who as at this time became a little child for our sake, more simple-minded, more humble, more holy, more affectionate, more resigned, more happy, more full of God.”
This remarkable sermon is one of 22 included in a volume which would serve as a perfect companion for the Jubilee Year of Hope just inaugurated by Pope Francis.
Naturally, it opens with a sermon delivered by St John Henry about Advent, this time at the Catholic University of Ireland, which he founded, and progresses chronologically throughout the liturgical year.
The second sermon is about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the third about Christmas. Then come sermons about the Epiphany, the Presentation, Ash Wednesday and the Annunciation. Four sermons are given over to the events of Holy Week and Easter, followed by the preaching of the saint on the Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Transfiguration, the Assumption, All Saints, All Souls and Christ the King, among other themes.
The preaching and teaching of this saint is so rich and extensive that devout souls seeking to know more may be forgiven if at times they feel slightly bewildered about where they should start.
This book, however, might serve as a perfect introduction, a sure aid to deepen their understanding, and an encouragement toward holiness and in perseverance in the Christian faith and life in a historical period marked in the West by widespread apostasy.
The sermons are written with elegance, beauty and passion and the conviction of a man whose entire life is transformed by love of Christ. Each is a theological treasure trove, and testament to the deeply spiritual and highly intellectual gifts of one of the most erudite and eloquent Christian figures of the modern age, a true Apostle of our times.
My guess is that it would be difficult for those who love St John Henry Newman and his works to put this down this book without wondering when – rather than if – this saint will be recognised as a Doctor of the Church.
Personally, I will be among those who will take delight in reading this book carefully over the course of this splendid Holy Year of Hope, and humbly invite others to do likewise, in the confidence that it might help the faithful to form the right dispositions to meet the challenges of 2025, that it may it serve to make our hearts beat with the Sacred heart of Jesus so that “neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace”, as the saint famously prayed.
There is still time to buy this volume before the end of Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany – the time, St John Henry tells us, “especially set apart for adoring the glory of Christ” when we must “draw hope from everything”. It is hard to put it any better.
