| In the footsteps of Cardinal Newman, Littlemore, Oxford |
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Fr David HARTLEY
Each of us walks in the steps of others. In every city we are aware of many before, some great and good, others less so, and in Oxford I have been able to walk in Newman's footsteps since my first visits to this area in 1976. I am a married priest, having been Anglican until 1995 and, until my very recent move north, for the last few years I have lived in Littlemore with my family. Littlemore was beyond the edge of Oxford in Newman's day, a small hamlet, without its own church until he built one for the people here. In 1835 he was vicar of St Mary's University Church but he had a sense of mission to the out-lying parts of his parish, so Oriel College, his college in the university, granted him some land and part of the cost of building a church, and he raised funds from friends and family to build it, along with a school for the children of the village. The church of St Mary and St Nicholas opened in 1836 and he appointed curates to care for it on his behalf, while also continuing to come to teach the children. In 1840 his friend had left the parish and he came to spend Lent there to help, fasting and praying, but it was not until 1842 that he decided to leave Oxford and lease an L shaped block of stables which he converted into small cottages connected by a cloister, with a library and chapel. This is now known as The College, and although it has passed through many uses it has been in the Catholic Church's hands for 50 years now, and is cared for by four sisters of the Community of The Work (Das Werk), under the care and guidance of the fathers of the Oratory. Here he was joined by several friends including Ambrose St John and they lived a life of prayer and simplicity, while Newman studied and worked on many writings, beginning in 1845 on his Development of Christian Doctrine. As he wrote he found that his arguments against the Catholic Church lost their force, and that, as he wrote in his Apologia "As I advanced my view so cleared that, instead of speaking any more of 'the Roman Catholics', I boldly called them Catholics (which implies that he was no longer certain that Anglicans could claim to be Catholic in any meaningful sense) Before I got to the end I resolved to be received" Other friends were being received into the Catholic Church, and a saintly Passionist priest working in England, Blessed Dominic Barberi, was able to come to Oxford on his way from Staffordshire to Belgium, without knowing just how much Newman now desired to become a Catholic. As he arrived late in the evening, and was trying to dry himself in front of the fire because he was wet from the rain after a long journey, Newman came into the room and fell on his knees, beginning immediately to pour out his heart: "the door opened, and what a spectacle for me to see at my feet John Henry Newman begging me to hear his confession and admit him into the bosom of the Catholic Church. And there by the fire he began his general confession with extraordinary humility and devotion." Littlemore had given him some space and privacy for Newman as a famous intellectual and prominent preacher and writer to make this inner journey. He had helped to give this small village an identity, while at the same time seeking his own true self and vocation. He gave Littlemore a church, within the Church of England, while seeking the true identity of the church, and looking so deeply and so far back, that he found we must all be one: to be truly Christian was to be truly Catholic, and that was only possible in the one Church which Christ had founded. As he explored the Lives of the saints he became convinced that only in the Catholic Church could one live the same faith. "Did St Athanasius or St Ambrose come suddenly to life it cannot be doubted what communion he would take to be his own. All surely will agree that these fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, would find themselves more at home with such men as St Bernard or St Ignatius Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodgings, or the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the teachers or members of any other creed. And may we not add, that were those saints, who once sojourned, one in exile, one on embassy, at Treves, to come more northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy brothers would turn aside from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel where mass was said in the populous alley or forlorn suburb? " In effect this is simply referring to the contrast between the City of Oxford and his own first parish, St Clements, because in this passage about small back street chapel he seems to describe the situation of the only Catholic chapel in the area, St Ignatius, which was really there, and which he had passed every day. It was only a few decades since the Catholic Church here in England had emerged from persecution and was allowed to have buildings for worship, and the community was small and poor. My wife Pat and I had bought a house in that same area of Oxford in 1987 when I began my training to be an Anglican priest. My ministry was at first unquestioning as an Anglican but I became increasingly unsettled. I have often found since that the Lord shakes us loose from a position of comfort to open our minds and hearts to him: it is part of vocation, to become ready for change. (I think of it in terms of gardening, the little plant being dug up, loosened from one place and then carried to a new and better position.) Fr David Hartley is now parish priestof Meir and Cresswell, Stoke on Trent In "Alouette", Review of the Foyers de Charité |