The Journey to Sainthood Begins
Welcome to the official blog of the Newman Canonisation! Although, as we’re covering John Henry Newman’s journey to Sainthood, we thought it should really be called a journal.
Over the coming months we will be publishing articles, videos, podcasts and more from leading Newman academics and Church leaders from around the world. We aim to bring John Henry Newman to life for this generation through new media and to bring about a greater understanding of his journey and works in the Church he loved so dearly.
John Henry Newman is truly a saint of our times and so much of what he wrote still rings true to us today. Living from 1801 to 1890, his world is not too far from our own. In 2010 at the time of his visit to Britain, Pope Benedict XVI said this.
“Cardinal Newman is a modern man, who took on all of the problems of modernity, he experienced the problem of agnosticism, the impossibility of knowing God, of believing; a man who throughout his life was on a journey, a journey to let himself be transformed by the truth, in a search of great sincerity and great willingness, to learn more, to find and to accept the path to true life…”
Newman’s great sincerity flows out of his writings, and through them we get a unique insight into his journey. In fact, Newman documented his life constantly, through a stream of letters to friends and those seeking spiritual advice, through his many published works and through his epic spiritual and intellectual autobiography ‘Apologia Pro Vita Sua’, a five hundred page masterpiece which he wrote in a mere seven weeks, for the precise purpose of detailing his journey to others.
Newman’s journey is a passionate pursuit of God, a pursuit that leads him to deep study, to a religious conversion that costs him his family and friends, and which eventually, sees him becoming a cardinal. Today, his voice continues to guide many.
Together, let us begin or once again take up this journey towards sainthood. For we to are called to passionately purse God in our own lives, we too are called to become saints.
“God knows me and calls me by my name … God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.”