Message for the future

In retracing the events of the past year in the traditional address to the Roman Curia, Benedict XVI once more referred to his “unforgettable journey to the United Kingdom”, whose initial concerns were refuted by fruitful and satisfactory outcomes. In particular, the Holy Father wished to recall the event which characterized not only the Visitation but also the entire year, namely, the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.Two aspects of the new Blessed were underlined in the speech to the Curia: the reflection on conscience and his conversions. Newman’s entire life was a journey of conversion guided by conscience understood in the twofold ability to identify goodness and the thrust to carry out good deeds. “Conscience is both capacity for truth”, underlined Benedict XVI, and therefore, man “has the obligation to set out along the path towards truth, to seek it and to submit to it wherever he finds it”. Conscience and conversion are strictly linked since one indicates the path of the other. In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, written in the period prior to his entry into the Roman Catholic Church, Newman wrote that to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often. The truth that we are exposed to in the course of history and its acknowledgment are realized by means of an evolution. However, how is it possible to distinguish between the true development of a doctrine and its corruption? For the English theologian this question had an existential as well as a theoretical bearing. In fact, his great love for the truth brought him to question the Anglican Church in which he was raised and that he was committed to serve. Moreover, the same question is raised by whoever comes to grips with the passing of time and in examining their own conscience wonder whether their life has undergone positive developments: a positive transformation. As a reply Newman developed his own theology of history, laying down the criteria enabling the distinction between authentic doctrinal developments and distortions. Indeed, what can be described as his greatest contribution to theology brought misunderstandings and mistrust. In fact, the difficult balance, broached in many of his works, between the need to change and the risk of betraying his own roots, touched the very heart of Christian faith, raising suspicions in those who were unaccustomed to his reasoning. As Benedict XVI recalled in his speech to the Roman Curia “in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard. It was too foreign in the context of the prevailing form of theological thought and devotion. In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: ‘As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life – but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion’. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood”. Thanks to his Beatification, in 2010 Newman was rediscovered. Which message for the future did he entrust to us? He is considered a father of the Second Vatican Council and he can continue illuminating the post-Council Church in addressing the question of identifying and preserving the essentials while continuing to renew herself. Two fundamental lessons are drawn from the life of Blessed Newman: the love for the truth and the courage to pursue it wherever it is found, even to the cost of breaking away from one’s tradition. Today Newman speaks not only to the Church and to theologians but also to individual faithful. The beginning of the year is always the time for new good propositions. What better proposition than the conversion of the heart, following the example of the new Blessed? May we listen to his words, pronounced in a sermon preached during his Anglican period, titled The Testimony of Conscience: “What then is it that we who profess religion lack? I repeat it, this: a willingness to be changed, a willingness to suffer (if I may use such a word), to suffer Almighty God to change us. We do not like to let go our old selves; and in whole or part, though all is offered to us freely, we cling hold to our old selves. But when a man comes to God to be saved, then, I say, the essence of true conversion is a surrender of himself, an unreserved, unconditional surrender. And this is a saying which most men who come to God cannot receive. They wish to be saved, but in their own way; they wish (as it were) to capitulate upon terms, to carry off their goods with them; whereas the true spirit of faith leads a man to look off from self to God, to think nothing of his own wishes, his present habits, his importance or dignity, his rights, his opinions, but to say: ‘Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth’ [1 Sam. iii. 9.]. The prophet Isaiah says, ‘Here am I: send me.’ [Isa. vi. 8.] And still more exactly to the point are St. Paul’s words, when arrested by the miraculous vision, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ [Acts ix. 6.] Here is the very voice of self-surrender, ‘What wilt thou have me to do? Take Thy own way with me; whatever it be, pleasant or painful, I will do it'”.