Newman's Own Words - H/T The Tenth Crusade!

“Everyone in the Church, ignorant or learned, must absolutely submit his mind with an inward assent to the Church as the teacher of the whole Faith.”  Or again: “It is no trouble to believe, when the Church has spoken; the real trouble is when a number of little popes start up, laymen often, and preach against Bishops and priests, and make their own opinions the faith, and frighten simple-minded devout people and drive back inquirers.” 

From 

Newman and the Laity

PAUL CHAVASSE

Guardian Angel, I thank you!

I think the year must have been 1943 or 1944. Perhaps there are still records where I could check the details. If there are, I do not know how to find them.

One morning I was sitting in my push-chair outside the Welling baker and general grocery shop which is the furthest but one on the left in the picture. My grandmother was inside the shop. I heard the sound of a plane and, saw one overhead. It was, in fact, probably a German VI. Bricks started to fall from the shop parapet. I thought someone was playing games. Next I remember blackness, but no sound. When I was again aware, my grandmother was standing by me, her hair and face white with plaster. She was laughing, and showed me a tin of sardines which she had been holding at the time of the explosion, completely flattened by the blast while her hand was unhurt.

The dome of the cinema on the other side of the road was without its copper cladding, and a railway signal (you can see the railway and Welling station in the distance) was lying on the embankment. There were bricks scattered over the pavement and three men lay covered with black sheets. 

I was very upset at the sight of their shiny black shoes protruding from the sheets, thinking how sad it was that they had polished their shoes, as my grandfather did every day, and were now dead and beyond enjoying their beautiful shinyness. A boy of about 14 was sitting in the shop window, crying. His arm was open from wrist to elbow, and pouring blood. I think the bone was visible.

I had a slight scratch on my left knee.

I have rehearsed this memory probably every day of my life since then, and will swear to its accuracy. It has left me with the conviction that I have a reason to be alive, and that God must have some work for me to do.

Or, as Blessed John Henry Newman put it:

God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission—I never may know it in this life,
but I shall be told it in the next.

My great fear is that I shall fail to know what task God has allotted me.

NEWMAN SPEAKS TODAY TO US THROUGH BLAIR - POPE POLYPISTIS I

London 29.01.2070.

During this morning's General Audience, held in the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, His Happiness, Pope Polypistis I spoke warmly of the fragrant memory of Saint Tony Blair, canonised one year ago today.

Riding on the Papal Unicycle, and steering an impeccably straight course along the Golden Line of Tolerance specially painted on the floor, His Happiness, wearing the the Universal Tiara, which bears the insignia of all the major Faiths, as well as others too numerous and esoteric to catalogue, greeted delegates from Catholic Abortionists, Queering The Church, We Are Church, and the general public.

"A Saint's life," his Happiness remarked, "is an open book where we can read what we will. Saint Tony devoted his life, as well as his overarching gifts of courage, intellect, honesty, and humility, to the pursuit of all that is good.

"In the true spirit of Newman, he stood for the Truth, and the rights of Conscience courageously to follow and embrace that Truth wherever it may be found.

"Many were the voices raised against him, not least in this our church, by those for whom the easy option of blind obedience to mere dogma was more attractive that the pursuit of Truth through a truly enlightenened Conscience.

"Newman speaks today to us through Blair.

"Pass me the ....."