Posted on October 13, 2019 View all news
Laudetur Jesus Christus! Gelobt sei Jesus Christus!
Sia lodato Gesù Cristo! Praised be Jesus Christ!
This upcoming week will be a very grace-filled week, but yet also a very busy week. We start this week with Sunday Mass, on this the 102nd anniversary of the great miracle of the sun at Fatima. Please remember that there is no Catechism this coming Tuesday as we prepare for everything for the rest of this week.
On Tuesday evening, Bishop Schneider will arrive. This follows up with the Oratory fundraising dinner on Wednesday evening. Though we are all sold out of seats, I ask that everyone, please keep this in your prayers. This is our only major fundraiser for the year. This fundraiser, in addition to the second collection today, helps us to pay for the education of your future priests. Providing priests is the great goal of the Oratory here, to ensure our two parishes have priests for the future. Though it may be hard to see now, remember in just a year and a half two more priests will be of service. This is, in part, thanks to your generosity.
On Thursday evening will be our big Solemn Pontifical Mass in celebration of the canonization of St. John Henry Newman, which occurred earlier today in Rome. St. John Henry Newman was the founder of the first English speaking Oratory in the world, and certainly holds a special place for us here in Cincinnati. Please be sure to join us at 5:30 for the vesting of the bishop and the 6:00 p.m. Mass. The bishop will depart on Friday.
The week, however, isn’t finished yet. On Saturday, we have the Eucharistic men’s procession from the Cathedral to Old St. Mary’s. The Archbishop will celebrate Mass at 8:00 a.m. followed by the procession. All men of the parish should join us! I will preach a sermon at Old St. Mary’s on St. John Henry Newman’s idea of Christian manhood. Finally, on Sunday, we conclude with the Original Italian Dinner at Sacred Heart. This is a significant fundraiser to ensure the doors of Sacred Heart stay open. Please come out in support. The carry out line opens around 10:30 a.m., and the dining hall opens at 12:00 noon. I hope to see you there!
Please remember to keep all these events in your prayers. They are all very important for our edification, spirituality, and the physical well being of our parishes. Thank you for your prayers and support, and have a blessed week ahead!
“Newman still had a significant difficulty with the Catholic Church, namely that it had seemingly added so much to the Christian faith that could not be found in early Christian history or in scripture, things like purgatory and papal supremacy. Anglican thought was that these additions were a corruption of Christian belief, but Newman wanted to probe further to examine whether these beliefs were legitimate. This led him to undertake an extensive historical study, the fruit of which would break new theological ground.
By the end of his investigation in 1845, he would publish one of his greatest contributions to Christian thought, the ‘Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine’.
Here, Newman explores the paradoxical idea that for an idea to remain truly itself, it must be able to change, to develop. Fundamentally, Newman came to realise that ideas and doctrines are ‘living’; they should not be considered purely intellectual beliefs or moral rules, but should vitalise the hearts of Christians and the body of the Church, just as Christ himself does. As these ideas are living things, Newman describes the idea like a creature.
‘ … it tries, as it were, its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it may fail … In time it enters upon strange territory; and old points of controversy alter their bearing … and old principles reappear under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.’ Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, pp. 39-41
Newman’s great thesis on change comes at another great period of change in his own life, as he had arrived at the realisation that the Anglican Church could never be the church he so desired. So in that same year, he would be received into the Catholic Church.’” – https://www.newmancanonisation.com/newmans-life
