By Saint John Henry Newman | Edited by Daniel M. O’Connell, S.J.

October 9, 1845: in the English parish of Littlemore, an Italian priest named Dominic Barberi received one John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church. Thus was a con­version, years in the making, now complete. Like all conversions, it entailed loss and gain. Newman, as his compatriot and fellow-convert Monsignor Ronald Knox would remark on the centenary of that event, gained but one thing—yet this was the only thing it mattered to gain: “the consciousness of telling, of living the truth.” In the warm blaze of the kindly light of that truth, Newman put his immense intellectual and rhetorical talents in service to the Gospel, preaching not from the rostrum, but from the pulpit. 

Edited by Daniel M. O’Connell, S.J., this volume offers twenty-eight of Newman’s sermons, taken from both his Catholic and Anglican years. These represent the living appeal of Newman’s brand of preaching, an appeal flowing from their religious sympathy with the human heart, their literary excellence, and their author’s own personality. The passage of time has done nothing to diminish their vitality and grace; they still light the path, in the words of Monsignor Knox, “for a multitude of souls to find their way, year by year, into the liberty of the sons of God”—out of shadows and images, into truth.

If we are sure that the Most Holy Redeemer has shed His Blood for all men,  is it not a very plain and simple consequence that we, His servants, His brethren,  His priests, should be unwilling to see that Blood shed in vain? What is so powerful  an incentive to preaching as the sure belief that it is the preaching of the truth? (Saint John Henry Newman)

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) had a notable career at Oxford University and was an Anglican priest before becoming a Roman Catholic in 1845 and a Catholic priest in 1847. A prolific author and preacher, he also founded Oratory houses and served as rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. In 2019, he was canonized a saint of the Catholic Church.

Daniel M. O’Connell, S.J. (1885–1958) was an American priest of the Society of Jesus and a key promoter of Cardinal Newman’s writings, editing this volume of sermons, three prayerbooks, and college editions of The Idea of a University and Apologia pro Vita Sua.

* * *

Paperback: 374pp.

ISBN: 978-1685954321