Tuesday, January 10th began for us at the Oxford Oratory with Morning Prayer, Holy Hour, and Mass. After Mass, we embarked upon a tour of Oxford with Dr. John White, a fellow (professor) at Oriel College. An historian himself, Dr. White shared with us his love of Oxford and his knowledge of the city, including the background and beginnings of many of the colleges that together constitute the University of Oxford. Dr. White brought us back to the 19th century Oxford of John Henry Newman’s time – a much smaller, quieter, slumbering Oxford that was also intellectually abuzz. It was a town where grass grew up on the muddy streets during the summer when students were out of term, and where farms bumped right up to the university buildings. Now, of course, the town has become more of a city that transcends the University. Today Oxford runs on a modified tutorial system: students live in the various colleges (dorm buildings with refectories, sports teams, and the like), and, rather than attend classes or regular lectures, they read common texts and meet one-on-one with a tutor to present a paper once per week. The tutor freely interrupts, challenges, or presses the student’s claims and thinking. Sometimes a student will have more than one tutor per term, if they have two subjects. John Henry Newman himself helped establish this tutorial system.
But why is Oxford important to us as seminarians? It’s important for what happened there during the 1830’s and 1840’s known as the “Oxford Movement,” and it’s important because of the life of Blessed John Henry Newman, one of the leaders of the Movement and perhaps the sharpest mind of the whole 19th century. During the 1830’s and early 1840’s, Newman and the others of the Oxford Movement attempted to recover for the Church of England an understanding of Apostolic succession to unify the Anglican Church. In the end, however, they failed; even the Bishops of the Church of England didn’t claim such a prerogative. Many of the Oxford Movement thus became Catholic, including Newman. These converts studied themselves into the Catholic faith, and opened the way for hundreds of thousands to follow them. Newman’s writings and thinking have had an incredible impact: during and since his time, an estimated 600,000 souls have entered the Catholic Church under his influence, including several current bishops in the American Church. Thanks be to God for this man, for his writing and thinking, and for his recent beatification (September 2010)! He was, simply, “The greatest Catholic convert since the Reformation,” as Father Ian Ker, respected Newman scholar, shared with us in the Tuesday afternoon lectures. Newman remains a man for the Church of today.
Our tour with Dr. White therefore heavily followed the life of Newman: where he studied as an undergraduate in Trinity College, where he preached his University Sermons in St. Mary’s Anglican Church, where he lived as a tutor, where he worked as an Anglican priest, and finally, where he made his Confession and was received into the Catholic Church. It was to Littlemore – a quiet, poor village three miles from Oxford – that Newman retreated during his last days as an Anglican, and it was there, after much prayer and fasting, that he could not tarry any longer: he felt he had to become Catholic, and it was Father Dominic Barberi (now Blessed Dominic Barberi) that heard his Confession and received him into the Church on October 9, 1845. And it was to Littlemore that we went in the afternoon for prayer, tea, and lectures as we follow in the footsteps of a great soon-to-be Saint of the Church. A blessed day indeed, as we continue our pilgrimage, our field-trip through the history of ideas and conversions in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thanks be to God!
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| Our tour with Dr. White begins right in front of St. Aloysius Church, to which the Oxford Oratory is attached. |
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| Tim and Marc by a bust of Newman at Trinity College |
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| Inside St. Mary's Church in Oxford. Newman gave many of his famous sermons from this pulpit. |
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| At the entrance to The College at Littlemore. Our thanks to the religious sisters who brought us into the homestead of Newman and showed us wonderful hospitality! |
Posted by Tim Lang.
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