It is now five years since St John Henry Newman (1801-90) was canonised by Pope Francis: the first new British saint to be recognised in over forty years and, incidentally, the fifth saint to have originated in the City of London (after Thomas Becket, Thomas More, Edmund Campion and the wonderfully named Polydore Plasden).
Newman’s life spanned much of the nineteenth century, and he was famous in his day as an English theologian, poet and priest who had controversially converted from Anglicanism at the age of 44.
A leading figure in the British Catholic community, Newman exerted an enormous influence on the life of a certain young man in Oxford, Gerard Manley Hopkins – whom he in fact persuaded to enter the Jesuits. What is perhaps less known is that Newman was also held in great affection by the Jesuit community of what was then St Beuno’s College, the Jesuit theologate in North Wales.
Newman would have been very familiar with St Beuno’s in its early days, staying here several times on his way over to Dublin where he was instrumental in establishing the Catholic University of Ireland, later to become University College Dublin, in 1854. One can imagine him sharing reminiscences of the house with a young Hopkins, himself later to spend three of the happiest years of his life here and be ordained a priest in our chapel in 1877.
From present-day St Beuno’s, our resident historian Alan Harrison SJ has unearthed a little-known correspondence between Newman and the community of St Beuno’s at the time that it was announced, very unexpectedly, that he was to be made Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII:
From the Jesuit Community, St Beuno’s College, North Wales:
‘Feb. 21, 1879.
Dear Father Newman,
The good news that reached us yesterday, that the Holy Father has laid at your Reverence’s feet the highest honours of the Church, has caused us so much pleasure that we cannot refrain from sending you a few lines to express our heartfelt joy at the welcome announcement. It is by a happy coincidence that we are able at the same time to convey to you our sincere congratulations on the occasion of your 78th birthday. We rejoice to hear that, at the evening of a long life devoted to the service of God and His Church, the exalted dignity of the Church’s princedom has been offered for your acceptance; we rejoice still more when we look back on the seventy years and more which are today completed, and think of all that you have done and suffered for the cause of Truth.
Your Reverence is not unaware of the deep affection and high esteem in which you are held among us. We are all of us in some way or other indebted to you. Some of us are bound to you by the strong ties of personal gratitude. The best return we can make to you is the prayers we shall tomorrow send up in your behalf to the throne of God. Those of us who have the opportunity of doing so hope to offer for you the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, and we shall all pray God that He may crown the years which still remain to you with the joy of one who has fought the good fight and earned the reward of peace and victory, and that in the Church Triumphant you may wear the crown which is laid up for the Princes of the Kingdom of Heaven.
We recommend ourselves to your Reverence’s Prayers and Holy Sacrifices, and we remain,
Dear Father Newman,
Yours affectionately in Jesus Christ.’
Newman’s reply to the Jesuit Community at St Beuno’s:
‘The Oratory, Birmingham, Feb. 22, 1879.
My dear Very Rev. and Rev. Fathers and Brothers,
I am too deeply moved, or rather too much overcome, by your letter to me of yesterday, my birthday, to be able to answer it properly. For such an answer I ought to be more collected than I can be just now.
If I were not writing to Religious Men it would be affectation in me and want of taste, to say, what is the real truth, that at the moment I cannot address to you the thanks due to you for your most loving words, for I am full of the thought of the goodness of God who has led you to send them: Misericordias Domini in aeturnum cantabo [I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever].
Do you in your charity, my dear friends, pray for me that I, an old man, may not fail Him who has never failed me; that I may not by my wilfulness and ingratitude lose His Divine presence, His Sovereign protection, His love, and that, having been carried on by His undeserved mercy almost to the brink of eternity, I may be carried on safely into it.
Your humble and affectionate servant in Christ,
J. H. Newman.’