Book Reviews and More: Two Discourses on Our Lady The Present and Future of British Catholicism

Two Discourses on Our Lady The Present and Future of British Catholicism

John Henry Newman

Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela (Introduction)

Catholic Truth Society

ISBN 9781784698584

eISBN 9781784698768

ASIN B0G3QRJBB2

CTS Booklet CP003

With the announcement of Saint John Henry Newman becoming the newest Doctor of the Church that has been a fresh revival in interest in the man, his life and his works. This was one of three new volumes released by the CTS after that announcement. The other two are:

The Second Spring

St John Henry Newman: A New Doctor of the Church

And there has been renewed interest in the volume:

Saint John Henry Newman: His Life and Works

But back to the volume at hand. The description of this volume is:

“Years before either the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Our Lady were formally declared dogmas of the Church, St John Henry Newman preached an unwavering devotion to Mary. In an introduction, Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela explains how Newman understood Marian devotion as inherently Christological.

Years before either the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Our Lady were formally declared dogmas of the Church, St John Henry Newman preached an unwavering devotion to Mary. In an introduction to these two important discourses, Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela explains how Newman, Doctor of the Church, understood Marian devotion as inherently Christological, always leading the way to deeper union with Christ. In the discourses themselves, Newman opens for the reader the mysteries revealed, graces procured and spiritual benefit bestowed on every Christian who draws close to Mary, the Mother of God.

Above all, let us imitate [Our Lady’s] purity… O my dear children, young men and young women, what need have you of the intercession of the Virgin-mother, of her help, of her pattern, in this respect! What shall bring you forward in the narrow way, if you live in the world, but the thought and patronage of Mary? What shall seal your senses, what shall tranquillise your heart, when sights and sounds of danger are around you, but Mary? What shall give you patience and endurance, when you are wearied out with the length of the conflict with evil, with the unceasing necessity of precautions, with the irksomeness of observing them, with the tediousness of their repetition, with the strain upon your mind, with your forlorn and cheerless condition, but a loving communion with her! She will comfort you in your discouragements, solace you in your fatigues, raise you after your falls, reward you for your successes. She will show you her Son, your God and your all.”

About the author of the forward we are informed:

“Dr Rebekah Lamb Varela is the Director of Teaching at the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews and a Lecturer in theology, imagination and the arts. Her research specialities are in theology and the arts, particularly literature and visual culture, in late modernity. Key figures in her work include John Henry Newman, Thérèse of Lisieux, Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as their inheritors (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Frances Blogg Chesterton, among others).”

The chapters and sections in the book are:

About the Author

Introduction by Rebekah Lamb Varela

Discourse 17. The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son: Seasons – Immaculate Conception

Discourse 18. On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary: Seasons – Assumption

The book is split almost equally in three, between the introduction and the two Discourses. I highlighted several passages while reading this volume, some of them are:

From the Introduction:

“This mysterious bond between Christ, the God-man, and his mother, the God-bearer (Theotokos), profoundly touched the heart of St John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) and enlivened his devotional life. It also illuminated his theological writings and homilies throughout his long life of preaching, teaching, and pastoral ministry.”

“Central to Newman’s great affection for Mary as the Theotokos is his appreciation that any devout Mariology is a derivative of Christology.”

“As with Newman, John Paul II’s Marian devotion was one which grew, maturing as he entered ever more deeply and prayerfully into the heart of the Church’s teaching and heritage.”

“As with John Paul II, Newman’s Marian devotion grew at different stages until it reached a deep maturation and became an abiding resource for his prayer and pastoral ministry–especially following on from his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and in his vocation as an Oratorian priest.”

“Newman was appointed vicar of the University Church and used this new pulpit extensively, preaching on a wide and rich variety of subjects concerning the spiritual life and Christian doctrine, including several meditations on the nature and dignity of Mary as God’s Mother and on the lives of the saints.”

“Newman’s preaching was not only popular due to his eloquence and the depth of his theological understanding. His sermons were also rooted in a living, active faith which manifested in practical wisdom, in offering concrete direction on how to live a holy life in the middle of the world, in one’s own place and time.”

“He the proceeds to emphasise how Mary’s paradoxically hidden presence throughout scripture reveals that the heart of the spiritual life is receptivity to the Holy Spirit.”

“However, following his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, Newman’s writings on our Lady as the God-bearer, the Theotokos, take on a new depth of affection and admiration which is shaped by, and grounded in, his extensive study of the early Church’s teaching and councils.”

“It is Newman’s searching examination of the early Church which also led him to see the degree to which the Christians of the early Church turned to the mother-son bond between Our Lady and Christ to clarify aspects of doctrine, especially those articles of faith concerning Christology (the study of the nature and person of the Jesus of history who is also the Christ of God).”

“For Newman, the first, divine dispensation toward Our Lady–namely, her Immaculate Conception–is the guarantor of the mysterious glory of her Assumption and all other graces granted to her.”

From Discourse 17:

“They are startling and difficult to those whose imagination is not accustomed to them, and whose reason has not reflected on them; but the more carefully and religiously they are dwelt on, the more, I am sure, will they be found essential to the Catholic faith, and integral to the worship of Christ.”

“As she was once on earth, and was personally the guardian of her Divine Child, as she carried Him in her womb, folded Him in her embrace, and suckled Him at her breast, so now, and to the latest hour of the Church, do her glories and the devotion paid her proclaim and define the right faith concerning Him as God and man. Every church which is dedicated to her, every altar which is raised under her invocation, every image which represents her, every litany in her praise, every Hail Mary for her continual memory, does but remind us that there was One who, though He was all-blessed from all eternity, yet for the sake of sinners, “did not shrink from the Virgin’s womb”.”

“It would not have sufficed, in order to bring out and impress on us the idea that God is man, had His Mother been an ordinary person. A mother without a home in the Church, without dignity, without gifts, would have been, as far as the defence of the Incarnation goes, no mother at all. She would not have remained in the memory, or the imagination of men.”

“I am not proving these doctrines to you, my brethren; the evidence of them lies in the declaration of the Church. The Church is the oracle of religious truth, and dispenses what the apostles committed to her in every time and place.”

“O harbinger of day! O hope of the pilgrim! lead us still as thou hast led; in the dark night, across the bleak wilderness, guide us on to our Lord Jesus, guide us home.”

From Discourse 18:

“We find that it is simply in harmony with the substance and main outlines of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and that without it Catholic teaching would have a character of incompleteness, and would disappoint our pious expectations.”

“So stands the case with Mary; she gave birth to the Creator, and what recompense shall be made her? what shall be done to her, who had this relationship to the Most High? what shall be the fit accompaniment of one whom the Almighty has deigned to make, not His servant, not His friend, not His intimate, but His superior, the source of His second being, the nurse of His helpless infancy, the teacher of His opening years?”

“Fulfil this boast in yourselves; prove to the world that you are following no false teaching, vindicate the glory of your Mother Mary, whom the world blasphemes, in the very face of the world, by the simplicity of your own deportment, and the sanctity of your words and deeds. Go to her for the royal heart of innocence. She is the beautiful gift of God, which outshines the fascinations of a bad world, and which no one ever sought in sincerity and was disappointed.”

I hope those quotes give you a feel for the volume. This volume is easy to engage with, anyone with a secondary education could easily work through it. I have a small collection of volumes about Newman from the CTS I still wish to read, and several by or about him that I have. I celebrate that he is a Doctor of the church and can easily recommend this or any of the other CTS volumes about or by him.

This book is a good read. I am thankful for the work that the CTS does, and for their effort to stay up to date on eBook editions. With my dual form of dyslexia and my son having eye tracking issues I consider them essential, especially with adaptive technology. I picked this up and did not start it as I was awaiting an eBook of one of the other new volumes. I finally caved and gave it a read I am so thankful I did.

Over the last several years, I have read many books from the Catholic Truth Society, in fact over 460 of them as of the reading of this volume; many read more than once; this all since the spring of 2018. Most were good reads; some were great reads; and a few are exceptional. Including this title.