Prayer Vigil, Hyde Park, London Address of the Holy Father
Prayer Vigil, Hyde Park, London Address of the Holy Father
My Brothers
and Sisters in Christ, This is an evening of joy, of immense spiritual joy, for
all of us. We are gathered here in prayerful vigil to prepare for tomorrow’s Mass,
during which a great son of this nation, Cardinal John Henry Newman, will be declared
Blessed. How many people, in England and throughout the world, have longed for this
moment! It is also a great joy for me, personally, to share this experience with
you. As you know, Newman has long been an important influence in my own life and
thought, as he has been for so many people beyond these isles. The drama of Newman’s
life invites us to examine our lives, to see them against the vast horizon of God’s
plan, and to grow in communion with the Church of every time and place: the Church
of the apostles, the Church of the martyrs, the Church of the saints, the Church which
Newman loved and to whose mission he devoted his entire life. I thank Archbishop
Peter Smith for his kind words of welcome in your name, and I am especially pleased
to see the many young people who are present for this vigil. This evening, in the
context of our common prayer, I would like to reflect with you about a few aspects
of Newman’s life which I consider very relevant to our lives as believers and to the
life of the Church today. Let me begin by recalling that Newman, by his own account,
traced the course of his whole life back to a powerful experience of conversion which
he had as a young man. It was an immediate experience of the truth of God’s word,
of the objective reality of Christian revelation as handed down in the Church. This
experience, at once religious and intellectual, would inspire his vocation to be a
minister of the Gospel, his discernment of the source of authoritative teaching in
the Church of God, and his zeal for the renewal of ecclesial life in fidelity to the
apostolic tradition. At the end of his life, Newman would describe his life’s work
as a struggle against the growing tendency to view religion as a purely private and
subjective matter, a question of personal opinion. Here is the first lesson we can
learn from his life: in our day, when an intellectual and moral relativism threatens
to sap the very foundations of our society, Newman reminds us that, as men and women
made in the image and likeness of God, we were created to know the truth, to find
in that truth our ultimate freedom and the fulfilment of our deepest human aspirations.
In a word, we are meant to know Christ, who is himself “the way, and the truth, and
the life” (Jn 14:6). Newman’s life also teaches us that passion for the truth,
intellectual honesty and genuine conversion are costly. The truth that sets us free
cannot be kept to ourselves; it calls for testimony, it begs to be heard, and in the
end its convincing power comes from itself and not from the human eloquence or arguments
in which it may be couched. Not far from here, at Tyburn, great numbers of our brothers
and sisters died for the faith; the witness of their fidelity to the end was ever
more powerful than the inspired words that so many of them spoke before surrendering
everything to the Lord. In our own time, the price to be paid for fidelity to the
Gospel is no longer being hanged, drawn and quartered but it often involves being
dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or parodied. And yet, the Church cannot withdraw
from the task of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel as saving truth, the source of
our ultimate happiness as individuals and as the foundation of a just and humane society.
Finally, Newman teaches us that if we have accepted the truth of Christ and committed
our lives to him, there can be no separation between what we believe and the way we
live our lives. Our every thought, word and action must be directed to the glory
of God and the spread of his Kingdom. Newman understood this, and was the great champion
of the prophetic office of the Christian laity. He saw clearly that we do not so
much accept the truth in a purely intellectual act as embrace it in a spiritual dynamic
that penetrates to the core of our being. Truth is passed on not merely by formal
teaching, important as that is, but also by the witness of lives lived in integrity,
fidelity and holiness; those who live in and by the truth instinctively recognize
what is false and, precisely as false, inimical to the beauty and goodness which accompany
the splendour of truth, veritatis splendor. Tonight’s first reading is the magnificent
prayer in which Saint Paul asks that we be granted to know “the love of Christ which
surpasses all understanding” (Eph 3:14-21). The Apostle prays that Christ may dwell
in our hearts through faith (cf. Eph 3:17) and that we may come to “grasp, with all
the saints, the breadth and the length, the height and the depth” of that love. Through
faith we come to see God’s word as a lamp for our steps and light for our path (cf.
Ps 119:105). Newman, like the countless saints who preceded him along the path of
Christian discipleship, taught that the “kindly light” of faith leads us to realize
the truth about ourselves, our dignity as God’s children, and the sublime destiny
which awaits us in heaven. By letting the light of faith shine in our hearts, and
by abiding in that light through our daily union with the Lord in prayer and participation
in the life-giving sacraments of the Church, we ourselves become light to those around
us; we exercise our “prophetic office”; often, without even knowing it, we draw people
one step closer to the Lord and his truth. Without the life of prayer, without the
interior transformation which takes place through the grace of the sacraments, we
cannot, in Newman’s words, “radiate Christ”; we become just another “clashing cymbal”
(1 Cor 13:1) in a world filled with growing noise and confusion, filled with false
paths leading only to heartbreak and illusion. One of the Cardinal’s best-loved
meditations includes the words, “God has created me to do him some definite service.
He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another” (Meditations
on Christian Doctrine). Here we see Newman’s fine Christian realism, the point at
which faith and life inevitably intersect. Faith is meant to bear fruit in the transformation
of our world through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity
of believers. No one who looks realistically at our world today could think that
Christians can afford to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis
of faith which has overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of
values handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape the
future of our society. We know that in times of crisis and upheaval God has raised
up great saints and prophets for the renewal of the Church and Christian society;
we trust in his providence and we pray for his continued guidance. But each of us,
in accordance with his or her state of life, is called to work for the advancement
of God’s Kingdom by imbuing temporal life with the values of the Gospel. Each of
us has a mission, each of us is called to change the world, to work for a culture
of life, a culture forged by love and respect for the dignity of each human person.
As our Lord tells us in the Gospel we have just heard, our light must shine in the
sight of all, so that, seeing our good works, they may give praise to our heavenly
Father (cf. Mt 5:16). Here I wish to say a special word to the many young people
present. Dear young friends: only Jesus knows what “definite service” he has in mind
for you. Be open to his voice resounding in the depths of your heart: even now his
heart is speaking to your heart. Christ has need of families to remind the world
of the dignity of human love and the beauty of family life. He needs men and women
who devote their lives to the noble task of education, tending the young and forming
them in the ways of the Gospel. He needs those who will consecrate their lives to
the pursuit of perfect charity, following him in chastity, poverty and obedience,
and serving him in the least of our brothers and sisters. He needs the powerful love
of contemplative religious, who sustain the Church’s witness and activity through
their constant prayer. And he needs priests, good and holy priests, men who are willing
to lay down their lives for their sheep. Ask our Lord what he has in mind for you!
Ask him for the generosity to say “yes!” Do not be afraid to give yourself totally
to Jesus. He will give you the grace you need to fulfil your vocation. Let me finish
these few words by warmly inviting you to join me next year in Madrid for World Youth
Day. It is always a wonderful occasion to grow in love for Christ and to be encouraged
in a joyful life of faith along with thousands of other young people. I hope to see
many of you there! And now, dear friends, let us continue our vigil of prayer
by preparing to encounter Christ, present among us in the Blessed Sacrament of the
Altar. Together, in the silence of our common adoration, let us open our minds and
hearts to his presence, his love, and the convincing power of his truth. In a special
way, let us thank him for the enduring witness to that truth offered by Cardinal John
Henry Newman. Trusting in his prayers, let us ask the Lord to illumine our path,
and the path of all British society, with the kindly light of his truth, his love
and his peace. Amen.