Blessed John Henry Newman, the Eucharist and the Sacraments


Mark McIntyre looks at Newman’s writings on the Eucharist and his understanding of sacramental doctrine


when, long aſter his reception into the Roman Catholic Church, Newman pays a private visit to Litlemore and is spoted by a farmer. Newman is leaning over the church wall with tears in his eyes. Te farmer returns home and simply says, ‘Parson has come back again!’ (L. Bouyer, Newman, His Life and Spirituality). Equally, on the day of Newman’s ordination as a deacon, he reflects, in the Autobiographical Writings: ‘It is over. I am thine, I seem quite dizzy, and cannot altogether believe and understand it… my heart shuddered within me, the words ‘forever are so terrible’. Here at the point of ordination is an understanding of sacramental acion, even if later he would question his own developed sacramental understanding of what was happening at his ordination as an Anglican.


S


Moment of realization Also as he prepared for his ordination as a priest he wrote,


‘Make me thy instrument, make use of me, when thou wilt and dash me to pieces when thou wilt, Let me living or dying, in fortune and misfortune, in joy and sadness, in health and Sickness, in honour and dishonour, be Tine.’ Tis moment of Newman’s realization is surely echoed in the beter moments of all those called to serve as deacons and priests. Even here then, in 1823–4, John Henry Newman surely sees the ontological change that comes through ordination, and we can identify a sacramental understanding of what he is experiencing through this sacrament. However even prior to ordination, Newman shows a great awareness of the importance of the sacraments, esecially that of Holy Communion.


Receiving worthily Newman had made his first Communion on 30 November


1817. At the time Newman went up to Oxford and Trinity College, it was the custom for all the college to atend Holy Communion on the feast of Trinity Sunday. It was significant enough for him to note it in his diary. It was also the custom in the evening aſter receiving Communion in the morning for the ‘men to get dead drunk’. Newman hated this custom and had writen for his own benefit a sermon on ‘unworthy communions’. Writen at the time when he was a young Evangelical. Also in the Plain and Parochial Sermons,Newman


ome of the biographies of John Henry Newman can generate deep emotion in the reader. For instance


preaches on ‘Atendance at Holy Communion’. Newman was scandalized by the heavy drinking and partying aſter the college had just been to Communion on Trinity Sunday. Te emphasis on worthily receiving of the Sacrament is strong again in this particular sermon: ‘Now it is plain when it is that


persons are in danger of receiving it fearlessly and thoughtlessly; not when they receive it for the first time, but when they have oſten received it, when they are in the habit of receiving it. Tis is the dangerous time. When a Christian first comes to Holy Communion, he comes with awe and anxiety. At least, I wil not suppose the case of a person so litle in earnest about his


Newman had come to believe in


the Real Presence after reflecting on the Fathers of the Church


soul, and so profane, as to despise the ordinance when he first atends it. Perhaps he has no clear doctrinal notion of the sacred rite, but the very title of it, as the Sacrament of his Lord’s Body and Blood, suffices to make him serious. Let us believe that he examines himself, and prays for grace to receive the giſt worthily; and he feels at the time of celebration and aſterwards, that, having bound himself more strictly to a religious life, and received Divine influences, he has more to answer for. But aſter he has repeated his atendance several times, this fear and reverence wear away with the novelty. As he begins to be familiar with the words of the prayers, and the order of the Service, so does he both hear and receive with less emotion and solemnity. It is not that he is a worse man than he was at first, but he is exposed to a greater temptation to be profane. He had no deeper religious principle when he first communicated than he has now (probably not so deep), but his want of acquaintance with the Service kept


him from ireverence, indifference, and wandering thoughts: but now this accidental safeguard is removed, and as he has not succeeded in acquiring any habitual reverence from former seasons of communicating, and has no clear knowledge of the nature of the Sacrament to warn and check him, he is exposed to his own ordinary hardness of heart and unbelief, in circumstances much more perilous than those in which they are ordinarily displayed. If it is a sin to neglect God in the world, it is a greater sin to neglect Him in church. Now is the time when he is in danger of not discerning the Lord’s Body, of receiving the giſt of life as a thing of course, without awe, gratitude, and self-abasement. And the more constant he is in his atendance at the sacred rite, the greater wil be his risk; his risk, I say; that is, if he neglects to be jealous over himself, to


June 2014 ■ newdirections ■ 27


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36