POPE BENEDICT XVI IN UK Pope Benedict's discourse at the evening vigil at Hyde
Park, London, on the eve of the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, Saturday,
18 September, 2010
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.