Heart Speaks Unto Heart: John Henry Cardinal Newman

Cardinal Newman painted by W. W. Ouless in 1879

In preparation for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI (Sept. 16-19, 2010) and his Beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, Care Ward, an advisor to the Home Mission (Evangelization) Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, wrote her reflections on what we can learn and do, based on Cardinal Newman’s life and faith. We have several La Salette parishes in England, cared for by members of the Province of Poland.

During his twenties, my brother was a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society and would spend hours sitting with an elderly housebound man listening to music and talking to him. When our family used to see this old man at Sunday Mass, he communicated his gratitude for my brother’s ti me through his handshake, tears and smile. It made for a powerful encounter of heart speaking to heart.

Pope Benedict XVI has chosen a similar phrase, in Latin: cor ad cor loquitur, as the theme for his visit to the United Kingdom, inviting everyone to consider afresh how they can receive and reach out to others with the love of Christ.

Logo for Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, Sept. 16-19, 2010

A Motto to Live By

The soon-to-be beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) chose “heart speaks unto heart” as the motto to go on his coat of arms when he became a Cardinal in 1879. At the time, Newman thought these words came from the Imitation of Christ (written in the 1400s), but in fact he was mistaken – they're from St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622), a French Bishop and great spiritual writer whom Newman revered. While Newman is perhaps most known for being a theologian and academic, many of his writings have a devotional tone, not least the words of the prayer, Radiating Christ, which is said by the Missionaries of Charity every day. It begins:?

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly
that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine.
Shine through me,
and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with
may feel Thy presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me
but only Jesus!

This prayer, along with some of Newman’s other writings, reveals the heart of a man who is deeply in love with Jesus and who is passionate about wanting to share the reality of this love with others. Newman felt his humanity but also knew that he was redeemed by Christ. How wonderful it would be then if, as a Catholic community, we would also spread the fragrance of Christ everywhere we go. How beautiful it would be if every person that we come in contact with sensed God’s loving and merciful presence in our hearts.

What joy there would be if people looked into our faces and only saw God shining through us; now is the time to shine. These are not just lofty and romantic desires but the fruit of union with God, a reality in the life of a person whose heart is consumed by the love and mercy of Christ.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque being shown the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a vision in 1673

Prayer is at the Center of Life

Heart speaks to heart can be unpacked in many different ways but, at its simplest level, it’s a phrase that invites us to make time to be with God in prayer. This making ourselves available to commune with the loving heart of God was something that the French saint, Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690), received and responded to in a special way. She wrote:

“Set up your abode in this loving Heart of Jesus and you will there find lasting peace and the strength both to bring to fruition all the good desires he inspires in you, and to avoid every deliberate fault. Place in this Heart all your sufferings and difficulties. Everything that comes from the Sacred Heart is sweet. He changes everything into love.”

She understood that if we want to live love, we must draw from the source of life and love, from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Margaret Mary knew that there was no other way, as Newman put it, to shine with God’s light.

Sharing Our Catholic Faith

During these times increasingly members of the Catholic Church are being called to account and are being invited to explain themselves in and through brokenness. Such are the challenges and difficulties being faced that it demands that we are people of conviction, people who are convicted by the truth of the Catholic faith.

Newman wrote in an Anglican sermon: “Eloquence and wit, shrewdness and dexterity, these plead a cause well and propagate it quickly, but it dies with them. It has no root in the hearts of men, and lives not out a generation.”

Few people have the gift of oratory but many more have sincerity and passion in abundance. The latter are the most important qualifications for witnessing to our faith and are the most convincing when we try to share with someone speaking from the depths of our hearts. When was the last time that you used an opportunity to speak from the heart to someone about what your faith means to you?

We cannot pass on to others what we have not received and don’t know ourselves. We are called to pray to be filled with Christ’s presence but also to put our intellect at the service of mission. It is important to consider how well we know the basic tenets of the Church’s teaching. Could you explain your faith to someone if they asked you a basic question about it? Many people have shared with me that they can’t and there are numerous resources to support you in filling the gaps; faith formation is life-long.

Fill the World With Love

When Mother Teresa (1910 – 1997) was interviewed in the 1970s she was quoted as saying:

“The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people… You, in the West, have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unloved and unwanted. These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way.”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

It is true that poverty of heart is widespread in the United Kingdom. Many people in our society do suffer from the absence of a loving presence in their lives. One of the ways that we can share our faith with others is through friendship and the giving of our time to a lon ely person, to someone who needs a listening ear, some understanding and compassion.

Few people make enough time to listen to others in their daily lives and yet in the Gospels we see that this was an important part of Jesus’ ministry. In response to this perhaps over the coming months make time for one person in your life who needs a phone call or a chat?

As a fruit of prayer we speak to people’s hearts through our every day actions. People notice what we do and don’t do. The example of deep and authentic faith in ordinary Catholics who are just trying to love God in the best way they can, going to church, trying to be kind, patient, forgiving, while not always succeeding gives us the ‘X.. Christ Factor’; we should stand out.

This day-to-day decision to choose the Christian way will gently influence those around us. People recognize goodness and virtue even if they don’t necessarily have the vocabulary to call it that. Perhaps bring to mind someone now who influenced you in your own life, who loved you, who accepted and listened to you, who spoke to your heart.

You and I in our time are now called to do the same. With the eyes of the world on the Catholic community, now is the time to reach out so that we can, in service of Home Mission, spread Christ’s fragrance everywhere we go, share a fragrance that is life-changing and priceless, a fragrance that is perhaps acknowledged through a simple handshake, tears and a smile.

(this article was used by permission from: http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/The-Catholic-Faith/Theme-Shapes-Home-Mission

Quotes from St. John Henry Cardinal Newman:

• To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
• Ability is sexless.
• We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
• Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.
• When [people] understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.
• Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.
• A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.”
• A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.
• Growth is the only evidence of life.
• Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.
• Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
• We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.
• Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,/ Lead thou me on;/ The night is dark, and I am far from home,/ Lead thou me on.

Painting of Cardinal Newman

Icon of Cardinal Newman and the Oratory