THE
P RTAL
February 2019
Page 10
Thoughts on Newman
Septuagesima
Some reflections by The Revd Dr Stephen Morgan
O f course,
the cycle of Saints days needed to be pruned – that happens periodically to ensure
room for newer saints – and the priority given to Sundays was, I suppose, inevitable, but other changes
were less necessary and, with the benefit of hindsight appear to be not entirely unalloyed blessings.
One such change was the abolition of the pre-lenten
season of “the gesimas”: Septuagesima, Sexagesima
(often the occasion of sniggers amongst choirboys)
and Quinquagesima. Here is not the place to set out
the respective arguments for and against that change.
Suffice it to say that, first, with the clarification of the
perennial legitimacy of what we are encouraged to
call the Extraordinary Form and, secondly, with the
establishment of the Ordinariate “Use” of the Ordinary
Form, this season is now back amongst us and I, for
one, am glad, mightily so.
There is a stark difference between the evidence for
the respective preaching styles of Blessèd John Henry
Newman during his Anglican and Catholic periods.
For the period prior to his submission to the Church,
we have five volumes of sermons, often reused and
revised, but always a complete speaking text, written
in his own very careful style.
After his conversion, we have mostly only outline
notes: we are left to our own devices to construct
exactly what Newman might have said from our wider
knowledge both of Newman and of the symphonic
whole of Catholic doctrine left to us, as Pope St John
XXIII put it, by God’s good providence, by the Great
Council of Trent.
Septuagesima Sunday, the Sunday occurring seventy
(for which the Latin is “septugesima”) days before
Easter is a case in point. Newman’s Anglican Sermons
preached on this annually recurring Sunday exist in full
prose form and, another sharp distinction between the
Anglican and the Catholic Newman, are significantly
longer, more extensive, closely argued and wider-
ranging than those from after October 1845.
Newman the Catholic might well have preached each
year on this Sunday but, since homilies were obligatory
only at the main Sunday Mass before Vatican II, it is
unlikely. We do, however, have at least one set of notes
of a Septuagesima sermon: the set published in his
Sermon Notes, edited by the Fathers of the Birmingham
Oratory and published first in 1913. Frankly, I can do
no better in this column of occasional reflections of
Newman and the Faith than to let him speak through
those notes but before I do, I can wish you a holy and
fruitful season:
On Labour—Our Work Here
1. Introduction—Before Lent the Church begins
by setting before us work as an introduction.
2. Epistle and gospel—beginning of Genesis.
Even before the fall, and much more after—
thorns and thistles.
3. This the contrast between before the fall and
after. The ground typifies our hearts—and now
we have labour.
4. And this will show us the heinousness of the
fall, for before it, the labour, the effort, was to
sin—before as difficult to sin as now to be a
hero. Grace was so great.
5. But grace being gone, the lower nature rose
against the upper as the upper against God.
6. This then, I say, our work—labour of one
kind or another. It has different names—self-
discipline, self-denial, penance, reformation,
mortification—all meaning the bringing under
of ourselves. Don’t think it hard if you find a
thing difficult; it is your work.
7. This implied in the subduing our ‘ruling
passion,’ so called.
8. Also exemplified in particular examination.
9. Also done in suffering. Suffering is a work.
On satisfaction and satispassio; on bearing
pain with sweetness or patience, with sweet
faces, ways, voice, etc., etc. On the discipline
when associated with the thought of Christ’s
sufferings, more meritorious; for the mind
goes with it and is not otiose.
10. Thus let us begin this sacred time.