John Henry Cardinal Newman on Conversion to Catholicism
“What thanks ought we to render to Almighty God, my dear brethren, that He has made us what we are! It is a matter of grace. There are, to be sure, many cogent arguments to lead one to join the Catholic Church, but they do not force the will. We may know them, and not be moved to act upon them. We may be convinced without being persuaded. The two things are quite distinct from each other, seeing you ought to believe, and believing; reason, if left to itself, will bring you to the conclusion that you have sufficient grounds for believing, but belief is the gift of grace. You are then what you are, not from any excellence or merit of your own, but by the grace of God who has chosen you to believe. You might have {212} been as the barbarian of Africa, or the freethinker of Europe, with grace sufficient to condemn you, because it had not furthered your salvation. You might have had strong inspirations of grace and have resisted them, and then additional grace might not have been given to overcome your resistance. God gives not the same measure of grace to all. Has He not visited you with over-abundant grace? and was it not necessary for your hard hearts to receive more than other people? Praise and bless Him continually for the benefit; do not forget, as time goes on, that it is of grace; do not pride yourselves upon it; pray ever not to lose it; and do your best to make others partakers of it.
And you, my brethren, also, if such be present, who are not as yet Catholics, but who by your coming hither seem to show your interest in our teaching, and you wish to know more about it, you too remember, that though you may not yet have faith in the Church, still God has brought you into the way of obtaining it. You are under the influence of His grace; He has brought you a step on your journey; He wishes to bring you further, He wishes to bestow on you the fulness of His blessings, and to make you Catholics. You are still in your sins; probably you are laden with the guilt of many years, the accumulated guilt of many a deep, mortal offence, which no contrition has washed away, and to which no Sacrament has been applied. You at present are troubled with an uneasy conscience, a dissatisfied reason, an unclean heart, and a divided will; you need to be converted. Yet now the first suggestions of grace are working in your souls, {213} and are to issue in pardon for the past and sanctity for the future. God is moving you to acts of faith, hope, love, hatred of sin, repentance; do not disappoint Him, do not thwart Him, concur with Him, obey Him. You look up, and you see, as it were, a great mountain to be scaled; you say, "How can I possibly find a path over these giant obstacles, which I find in the way of my becoming Catholic? I do not comprehend this doctrine, and I am pained at that; a third seems impossible; I never can be familiar with one practice, I am afraid of another; it is one maze and discomfort to me, and I am led to sink down in despair." Say not so, my dear brethren, look up in hope, trust in Him who calls you forward. "Who art thou, O great mountain, before Zorobabel? but a plain." He will lead you forward step by step, as He has led forward many a one before you. He will make the crooked straight and the rough plain. He will turn the streams, and dry up the rivers, which lie in your path. "He shall strengthen your feet like harts' feet, and set you up on high places. He shall widen your steps under you, and your tread shall not be weakened." "There is no God like the God of the righteous; He that mounts the heaven is thy Helper; by His mighty working the clouds disperse. His dwelling is above, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He shall cast out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, Crumble away." "The young shall faint, and youths shall fall; but they that hope in the Lord shall be new-fledged in strength, they shall take feathers like eagles, they shall run and not labour, they shall walk and not faint."
And you, my brethren, also, if such be present, who are not as yet Catholics, but who by your coming hither seem to show your interest in our teaching, and you wish to know more about it, you too remember, that though you may not yet have faith in the Church, still God has brought you into the way of obtaining it. You are under the influence of His grace; He has brought you a step on your journey; He wishes to bring you further, He wishes to bestow on you the fulness of His blessings, and to make you Catholics. You are still in your sins; probably you are laden with the guilt of many years, the accumulated guilt of many a deep, mortal offence, which no contrition has washed away, and to which no Sacrament has been applied. You at present are troubled with an uneasy conscience, a dissatisfied reason, an unclean heart, and a divided will; you need to be converted. Yet now the first suggestions of grace are working in your souls, {213} and are to issue in pardon for the past and sanctity for the future. God is moving you to acts of faith, hope, love, hatred of sin, repentance; do not disappoint Him, do not thwart Him, concur with Him, obey Him. You look up, and you see, as it were, a great mountain to be scaled; you say, "How can I possibly find a path over these giant obstacles, which I find in the way of my becoming Catholic? I do not comprehend this doctrine, and I am pained at that; a third seems impossible; I never can be familiar with one practice, I am afraid of another; it is one maze and discomfort to me, and I am led to sink down in despair." Say not so, my dear brethren, look up in hope, trust in Him who calls you forward. "Who art thou, O great mountain, before Zorobabel? but a plain." He will lead you forward step by step, as He has led forward many a one before you. He will make the crooked straight and the rough plain. He will turn the streams, and dry up the rivers, which lie in your path. "He shall strengthen your feet like harts' feet, and set you up on high places. He shall widen your steps under you, and your tread shall not be weakened." "There is no God like the God of the righteous; He that mounts the heaven is thy Helper; by His mighty working the clouds disperse. His dwelling is above, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He shall cast out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, Crumble away." "The young shall faint, and youths shall fall; but they that hope in the Lord shall be new-fledged in strength, they shall take feathers like eagles, they shall run and not labour, they shall walk and not faint."
posted by Hans-Georg Gadamer @ 4:28 am
9 comments
9 Comments:
I appreciate what he's saying, but I don't agree. Simply, examine this:
"You are still in your sins; probably you are laden with the guilt of many years, the accumulated guilt of many a deep, mortal offence, which no contrition has washed away, and to which no Sacrament has been applied."
I'm just not. I don't feel unclean, dirty, sinful, "laden with guilt" over anything. I don't feel buried by it or in need of Sacrement to restore me. He's just wrong about that.
"You at present are troubled with an uneasy conscience, a dissatisfied reason, an unclean heart, and a divided will; you need to be converted."
I can agree with this more, but only partially. I am a bit troubled, but only because someone says or implies, "it is good or better to be Catholic if you are a Christian", and I do not see why. My heart, however, is not unclean, insomuch as I can perceive such, and my will is not divided: I do not want to be Catholic, I have not ever wanted to be Catholic, and I do not think I ever will want to be - at least not for the reasons he's described. The last thing I need is to be converted - I do not consider myself "unconverted" - simply un-Catholic.
I am troubled not by a divided reason, but by a united one: by a mind united in its protest against the idea that the Catholic church is better than any given Protestant one, and that it's most salient doctrinal and practical differences (the sanctity of the preisthood and their importance in the church, for example - not just the mary and saints stuff) translate into anything resembling a better Christian community, better Christian experience, better Christian life, or better communion with God. My mind is quite united in the opinion that the Catholic church is just as much a confused and dysfunctional body, that it's doctrines are just as fractured, that it's leaders just as effective or ineffective, and it's masses just as ignorant, as any protestant church.
Protestant churches range in their confusion from an irrational application of the englightenment and modernism to silliness and postmodernism while the Catholic church, while plagued by both of these, is hampered by a form of pre-modern medieval paganism that I find just as tedious, weird, and distracting as Matt Redman is silly.
And that is why I'm not a Catholic. My interest and curiosity comes from thinking perhaps I might be wrong in that thinking, and that maybe this beautiful and ancient church who can draw it's lineage so much more directly back to the beginning might know something I don't - not some inexorable guilt or the weight of sin. I'm completely open to being wrong, and interested in finding a church where I don't feel like we're playing religion and wasting our time, and I'm open to the idea that the Catholic one might be it. So far I've seen absolutely nothing that doesn't confirm that suspicion, however, so I remain "unconverted."
I don't think I'm alone in that. I think the number of protestants turning Catholic out of "guilt" are precious few. Sorry Newman, but I just don't agree at all.
I guess a copy-and-paste is better than nothing!
Redness - thanks for the comments.
Actually I just posted this item because it was one of the most powerful pieces I have encountered in my conversion. That is not to say I think it will make any sense to anyone else, really. I had no intention of saying "Read this and you will have to convert!". Far from it!
Actually, I don't think anyone can convince you of converting except yourself (through self-reflection and the work of the Holy Spirit, however he deems to do that work). That is my experience at least.
I think conversion is always an 'internal' affair which answers a pull on your heart, mind, body, and soul. What I find most satisfying in Catholicism is that all four elements are important in a Catholic theology. In no other expression of Christianity (excepting Eastern Orthodoxy, I just don't know them that well) is the whole person respected, appreciated, and fed by God. My experience of Protestantism has been entirely a cognitive affair, something only effecting my belief structure and intellectual life. This may not be yours and for your own spiritual sake I hope it is not. What I have found though is that intrinsic to Protestantism is a gnostic tendency which emphasizes texts over presence; bibliolatry is one word for it. There are certain ways out of this in some practice, but that seems to be begging the question for me. Catholicism is about remission of sins, the presence of God and Christ's actual presence in the world through sacraments and the 'body of Christ' which is the mystical union (spiritual and physical - or real) of the Church. Basically physicality matters in the Catholic faith whereas it doesn't in Protestantism, as far as I have seen. At least that's what I have found in my thinking and research.
As far as feeling 'unclean, dirty, sinful, etc.' I probably wouldn't put it in those terms. But why not? Do you really believe that you are righteous and clean? Do you really? What is your doctrine of original and actual sin? Is sin something real and physical, a real disorientation of your being away from God and his Being; or is it all some linguistic game which you inherited as a child and haven't given up due to a feeling of security about 'saying the right words'? If you have given it up and don't feel 'sinful' then I suspect that you are either a living saint or you are deluded. The fact is that we live in a world of sin and we are always striving against it. Sure it was defeated ultimately at the Cross, but what does that mean today? What is your idea of atonement? How are you made clean and righteous? Do you care about reality and sin or do you buy some humanistic Enlightenment concept of 'we are all okay and fine' and then put some evangelical clap trap on top of it?
I don't think you do buy that Enlightenment garbage nor that you feel very satisfied with saying 'I am not sinful' to yourself. But unless you think some words alone make a difference (does reading or thinking about the Bible do anything for your cleansing?) you need something real and physical (as well as spiritual) to make a reconciliation. How do you do that? Where does that come from?
These are important questions and for me they are answered best by Catholicism. I don't expect anyone to be convinced of the rightness of the Catholic faith until they start asking the right questions, until the start thinking in the right framework. If you don't think you are sinful and need redemption then Catholicism has nothing to say to you (neither does any Christianity, by the way). If you do think you are sinful you need a solution and you have to ask what that solution is. Believing in Jesus? What does that mean, anyways? If your sin is actual then don't you need something actual? How does a right thought cleanse real sin?
The main point is that if you are not ready to ask certain questions than the answers will not make sense. Showing someone the solution to a second order differential equation won't make any sense (and will seem completely wrong, just like your feeling about Newman) unless you have a good handle on differential equations and understand the problems involved. So some of the content from Newman's quote won't make sense because you aren't asking those questions.
If you want a concrete place to start, get your hands on Ratzinger's "Introduction to Christianity" and see what you think. I don't expect you to convert by any means, I don't think you are in that place and I don't think God is putting you in that place now (maybe never).
What really attracted me to this quote was the compassion and care involved in Newman's offer; when is the last time you have heard someone so serious about the issue of the Catholic Church (he knew from conversion experience himself) and our relation to it. This man has a pastoral heart and it spoke to me during this time of my life. I thought it might on a broad level be interesting to share in that moment with me, but it is not something proving the rightness of Catholicism. Nothing can do that until you start asking the questions. Once you do Newman makes sense, until then he probably doesn't.
Jacks - I know! I felt bad doing it but I wanted to put the quote up because I love Newman and it was a great one for me!
I intend to write a more specific one in the next two days, but I am waiting for some official word about Catholicism before then. Look for something soon though, and I will need a new blog name!
Thanks for stopping by though!
Hans, thank you so much for this. Newman has this way of writing such that you think you personally were the sole intended reader – a personal letter from Cardinal Newman. This resonates so much with me and with my experience and all of my fears and hopes as a Christian. Particularly this:
“You are still in your sins; probably you are laden with the guilt of many years, the accumulated guilt of many a deep, mortal offence, which no contrition has washed away, and to which no Sacrament has been applied. You at present are troubled with an uneasy conscience, a dissatisfied reason, an unclean heart, and a divided will; you need to be converted.”
I also deeply hope that this is true:
“You are under the influence of His grace; He has brought you a step on your journey; He wishes to bring you further, He wishes to bestow on you the fulness of His blessings, and to make you Catholics.”
To be forthright, I desperately want to be Catholic – perhaps only because of His grace – yet it is not clear to me what precisely it might mean to be Catholic (even if I might be fairly articulate about what it might mean not to be Catholic). I am as yet under no conviction that “being Catholic” is synonymous with being Roman Catholic. Much of this is familiar terrain and isn’t appropriate for this discussion, but it is at this point that I find Newman at his least convincing. His call to become Catholic could not be clearer or more convincing; his exclusive identification of Catholicism with the Roman Catholic Church and the definition of “Catholic” that naturally results from that are, it seems to me, far more dubious and highly contestable.
I eagerly await your thoughts on your own conversion and Catholicism to appear in this space.
J. Morg,
I couldn't have put the 'personal letter from Cardinal Newman' better myself, I have always felt the same way. Have you read much of his stuff? I think he is one of the greatest thinkers of the Church in the last two centuries, he definitely doesn't get the air time he should (as opposed to people like Hans Kung - although he has good things to say too). If you haven't read his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, drop everything you are doing and read it! Not just dealing with the conversion thing, but it is undoubtably in the same league (I think surpases, to be honest) as Augustine's Confessions. I know, strong claims! But I am not the only one making them, his Apologia is absolutely beautiful, it is one of my favourite pieces (much like Plato's Apology but better!).
That line about 'being under his grace', 'bringing you on the journey' and wanting to make me Catholic hit me right between the eyes when I first read it (and it still lifts me up) - I felt like I was one of the people in the congregation who he was talking to. Absolutely amazing! His life and thought alone is almost enough justification to convert to Catholicism even if nothing else made sense (How could so holy and beautiful a man be wrong?).
I would love to share some reflections on my journey and to be honest the reason I haven't been posting is because all I have been reading and thinking on these last months is this issue, and because I have (had) certain obligations to my bishop and church I didn't feel right publishing my thoughts since some here at Wycliffe read them. Now that I have official turned in my resignation letter to my bishop and notified all the appropriate people I feel a little freer to speak openly about my journey and I think you will see more things up here as far as what has drawn me to Rome. In due time.
As far as 'being Catholic', one short reflection is my experience right now. Unlike converting from Presbyterianism to Anglicanism, what I am going through now is a bit different. I can not call myself a Catholic, because I am not Catholic yet. I might (and do) believe what the Catholic Church believes on many issues and have a strong desire to join Rome in full communion; but my particular cognitive assents and states of mind are not what makes me Catholic. So I am in a limbo right now but there is something right about that; you should be able to think your way in or out of the Church - it is too physical for that. I thought I was 'Catholic' by affirming von Balthasar, Ratzinger, Transubstantiation, the bishop of Rome, etc., but those are beliefs and marks of a Catholic, they do not make me Catholic. What makes me Catholic is being in communion with the Pope (and what a wonderful one he is!) through the sacrament of Confirmation. It is a physical (and spiritual, of course) union with the Church of Christ, not a cognitive affair.
So when Newman argues that Catholic means "Roman" I am actually quite satisfied with that; it couldn't be otherwise really unless you are an idealist in metaphysics and philosophy. The Catholic Church is a reality, a physical reality tied to a particular place, not a set of beliefs that you profess. The beliefs are essential and necessary to join, but they are in no way sufficient. Basically I am not a Catholic until I am a Catholic; until I have come into physical and spiritual union through the Sacraments with the Bishop of Rome and his Church. That's it. That may sound like Western hegemony but I don't think it is, it is just a realization that physical and spiritual reality are intertwinned and that idealism is a grand delusion.
I hope that makes a little sense; the notion of a "real" Church as opposed to a "ideal" church is a solid foundation in my conversion; physicality and the body are important and the Catholic Church is the only one I can see which really follows those metaphysical conclusions in its ecclesiology. But I am sure I will write more on this in a short time and you can bring up more questions there.
First though, for your own spiritual, emotional, and physical (!) health, read Newman's Apologia if you haven't! Maybe we could read it through together this summer? I would be glad to.
Thanks for your great response and sharing your feelings about the passage. Without your description, I interpreted it as your way of saying the same things he's said here to me, us, and the blogosphere at large, which it seems wasn't your intent.
"But why not? Do you really believe that you are righteous and clean? Do you really?"
Well, yes and I know. I take sin seriously, but I take redemption and forgiveness and grace seriously too. I don't feel at all like I don't need Christ or Christianity - what I meant was that I don't feel that my protestant tradition/experience/church is letting me down in that regard. I'm not dissatisified with protestantism as it relates to sin in the ways Newman declares I am - that's all I meant.
Theologically, I see some sense in your statement that Roman Catholicism is concerned with redemption, the expiation of sin, while the protestant tradition is more concerned with an intellectual system for salvation, and I also agree that this is troubling. Yet in my experience that's just not the case. It's never so cut and dry as that, and after all, it was the Catholic church who introduced the complicated and confusing systems of penance, indulgences, purgatory, etc. to define the parameters by which salvation occurs. To the extent that protestantism is an intellectual tradition it is also a reaction to a now discarded anti-intellectual tradition in the Catholic church. The reformation wasn't about ignoring expiation of sin in favor of systematic theology, but rather discarding bad theology in favor of something they considered to be both more biblical and more reasonable.
But to be fair, this is not the state of either branch of Christianity today. By in large, Catholics are not over-systematizing the faith, and Protestants are not protesting it. Protestants are doing whatever the hell they feel like, and it is a problem.
Excellent, excellent discussion! I'm sorry I'm just now reading it.
Apparently, I've been under a rock the past few months. Or giving a graduate recital...yeah, that's it.
I'm catching up. Good stuff!
The physical dimension of the Catholicism is a beautiful result of what it means to be an incarnational reality. It is also directly related to a rich understanding of a pervasive sacramentality. In some ways, Rome actually cheapened the Church's understanding of sacramentality by defining 7 sacraments. Really, there are at least two more: Christ, the sacrament of God; and the Church, the sacrament of Christ. And it doesn't stop there! It's quite profound.
See E. Schillebeeckx for more.
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