lo and behold, a modern discovery in Hyde Park: silence facilitates prayer.... I wonder if this is what informed the pope's sermon during the Mass at Cofton Park which seemed to focus almost exclusively on spiritual matters. I was underwhelmed initially by what seemed a rather timid reflection on Newman's spiritual life. But perhaps the papal subtext was simply this: any fool can bang a drum of public controversy (and usual does), but fruitfulness comes first from listening to God, like Newman, More, and all the rest.Well, I think that was definitely one of the papal subtexts, but there were several others (the Pope is too subtle a theologian to restrict himself to just one), and what follows is an attempt to pick out a few more of the expertly interwoven threads....
In his Cofton Park homily, Pope Benedict begins by situating Newman within a tradition of scholar-saints whose personal holiness bears witness to the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the People of God.
He is worthy to take his place in a long line of saints and scholars from these islands, St Bede, St Hilda, St Aelred, Blessed Duns Scotus, to name but a few. In Blessed John Henry, that tradition of gentle scholarship, deep human wisdom and profound love for the Lord has born rich fruit, as a sign of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit deep within the heart of God's people, bringing forth abundant gifts of holiness.This indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Church (the People of God) finds concrete expression in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the individual believer, who is called to bring his heart into communion with the divine Heart:
Cardinal Newman’s motto, cor ad cor loquitur, or "Heart speaks unto heart", gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God.Anyone who is familiar with Eastern Orthodox theology and spirituality will be struck by the vocabulary which Pope Benedict (who has a keen appreciation of Orthodoxy) employs in discussing a figure who is widely tipped as a future Doctor of the Catholic Church.
Orthodox theology and spirituality (which, arguably, are pretty much one and the same thing in Orthodoxy) place a strong emphasis on the idea that the heart rather than the intellect (in its western sense) is the place of encounter - of communion - between the human person and the divine persons.
Intriguingly, in his address at Evening Prayer in Westminster Abbey, at which a number of senior Orthodox clergy were in attendance, Benedict chose to use the Greek word for communion: koinonia. As Fr Blake rightly observes, he is a "Pope of sign and symbol".
The Pope goes on to explain that Newman understands the communion of the human heart with the Heart of God in terms of transformation into the divine likeness:
He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, "A habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualising and elevating the soul".Newman, like Pope Benedict, was steeped in the writings of the Church Fathers (indeed, one of the reasons for his conversion was his conviction that the Catholic Church, unlike the Church of England, had remained faithful to the theological and spiritual teaching of the Fathers), and the idea that prayer transforms us into the divine likeness by elevating and spiritualising the soul reflects the intensely patristic mind-set shared by Newman and Benedict.
Once again, the juxtaposition of the themes of communion with God, prayer of the heart and transformation into the divine likeness is reminiscent of Orthodox theology, and it is not inconceivable that Pope Benedict sees the ecumenical significance of Newman's beatification not in terms of Catholic-Anglican relations but in terms of Catholic Orthodox relations, given that Newman's theological "style" (as Hans Urs von Balthasar might put it), while remaining fully and uncompromisingly Catholic, possesses at times a distinctly Orthodox "feel".
The Pope had, in fact, explored many of these ideas the previous day in his address to young people outside Westminster Cathedral, where he begins by saying
"Heart speaks unto heart" – cor ad cor loquitur – as you know, I chose these words so dear to Cardinal Newman as the theme of my visit. In these few moments that we are together, I wish to speak to you from my own heart, and I ask you to open your hearts to what I have to say.Benedict clearly does not share the view that theology needs to be dumbed down for a youthful audience, for he follows this opening by touching, as at Cofton, on the profoundest of themes - the heart as the centre of communion with God, communion with God as communion with a Trinity of Persons, and communion with God as transformation into the divine likeness:
I ask each of you, first and foremost, to look into your own heart. Think of all the love that your heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give. After all, we were made for love. This is what the Bible means when it says that we are made in the image and likeness of God: we were made to know the God of love, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to find our supreme fulfilment in that divine love that knows no beginning or end.The conclusion to Benedict's short but impact-laden address is extraordinary. First he beseeches his young audience
I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer.Anyone who is familiar with Carmelite spiritual writing will instantly recognise the mystical tradition on which Benedict is drawing here. And, so, indeed, will anyone who is familiar with Orthodox spiritual writing.
Refreshingly, Benedict is very honest about the fact that all of this requires a lot of discipline and a lot of hard work:
this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amid the “busy-ness” and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.Again, this could easily have come from one of the extracts on the wonderful Carmelite blog louange de sa gloire. It also echoes the emphasis on the importance of silence which (as Ches argues) was one of the key themes that emerged out of the Hyde Park vigil.
Indeed, one might say that a theology of prayer as silence, contemplation, descent into the heart, communion with the Trinitarian Persons and transformation into the divine likeness is the golden thread the connects the Hyde Park vigil, the address on the steps of Westminster Cathedral and the Crofton Park homily for Bl John Henry Newman's beatification.
The more one reads the homilies and speeches made by Pope Benedict during his recent visit to the UK, the more one discerns a number of these threads - others including redemptive suffering, the relation of faith and culture and the meaning of priesthood - each of which Benedict relates to person of Newman.
I suspect that there many more "papal subtexts" in these various homilies and addresses which we have yet to unpack....
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