John Henry Newman reminds us that God gives us angels not only to protect us from evil but to guide us to heaven.
Newman warns against the danger of self-righteousness, and its converse: shunning religious practices that might lead to self-conceit.
God requires much from us; don’t shrink back, but go on with the courage of one who knows “If God be for me, who can be against me?”
Religion is more than just an abstraction; it is a lived reality with outward manifestations, Newman explains in his poem External Religion.
The world God made has a natural law of cause and effect built into it. One act of love really benefits the whole of creation, and one sin harms the same whole. On the individual level, our personal sins, as well as our acts of love, mold our character moment by moment.
Unlike Balaam, our obedience to God should be borne out of the desire to not offend a Good Father, but to please Him out of love.
Obedience to God should not be merely dutiful. John H. Newman explains that this is one of the lessons we can learn from the history of Balaam.
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
The joy of Easter will make us bold witnesses to the miracle of God’s forgiveness, but love will spur us to learn more about the truth and to exhaust every means of becoming an effective evangelist.
A Guide to John Henry Newman will interest educated readers and professors alike, and serve as a text for college seminars for the purpose of studying Newman.
Review by Catherine Maybanks
(Catholic Herald, April 1, 2023)
What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education? Why is it so important for the development of a person?
Fr. Juan R. Vélez answers these and more questions you might have about University Education in the 21st century. This book is aimed for parents, prospective University students, and educators. It will help you discern why adding Liberal Arts electives to your education will help it form it better, and help the student learn to reason, and not just learn.
He also explains how many Universities have changed the true meaning of Liberal Arts, and the subjects, and gives advise on how to choose College Campus, Subjects, and Teachers.
A wonderful book that every parent should also read way before your children are College bound. A Liberal Arts education can start earlier in life, even from home.
For both theologians, the written Word of God must be approached in a prayerful manner, with humility and faith.
With both St. John Henry Newman and Pope Benedict XVI, we see how God uses the gifts of intelligence and learning.
In both Benedict and Newman we have models of kindness, a kindness rooted in commitment to truth, to reality. Secure in the knowledge that they were loved by God and in the truth that had set them free, they were at liberty to love others.
As “co-workers in the truth,” Newman and Benedict teach us that only from within the setting of God's truth can “heart speak unto heart.”
"What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too."
Newman, Wojtyla and Ratzinger are among the Christian thinkers who have best explained the correct relationship between faith and reason.
Many influential aspects of Newman’s own faith journey cluster around the Wise Men’s star-gazing encounter with Jesus.
“Co-workers in Truth”: John Henry and Josef Ratzinger
Love, the one thing needful, must infuse all that we are lest we become outward Christians while remaining worldly in spirit.