St. J.H. Newman, the Holy Name of Mary, and "Newman's Marian Theology of History"

Today is the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, a feast, like that of the Holy Rosary in October, inspired by a great defensive victory over the Turkish armies/navies. This feast commemorates the defeat of the Turks who were besieging Vienna on September 12, 1683. Remember that the Battle of Vienna began on September 11, 1683. Pope Blessed Innocent XI instituted the today's feast of the Holy Name of Mary to commemorate that victory. After the Second Vatican Council the feast was suppressed, but Pope St. John Paul II restored it to the universal Roman Calendar in 2002, the year after the 9-11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC (and Shanksville, PA before the plane reached its target). Pope St. John Paul II also restored the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus that year (celebrated on January 3).

Saint John Henry Newman composed a Litany on the Holy Name of Mary in his Meditations and Devotions.

I've been listening to this podcast of Dr. Rebekah Lamb's lecture on "Newman's Marian Theology of History" posted by the Thomistic Institute, given on April 26, 2022 at Oxford University. Here are a couple of quotations from her lecture, which the Thomistic Institute used on their Facebook page announcements of this lecture:

"Newman's early poetic interests in the relationship between hiddenness and holiness demonstrate how his heart already stirred after the Marian even before he recognized, let alone fully accepted, the Mother of God's central and distinctive importance within salvation history." —Dr. Rebekah Lamb

"The Marian influences on Newman's thought are Marian in character: that is, they're hidden, humble, and yet profoundly essential." —Dr. Rebekah Lamb

It's interesting that she cites many of the same sources (the Apologia pro Vita Sua, Parochial and Plain Sermons, the Development of Doctrine, etc) I highlighted in the August series on the Son Rise Morning Show! Rather "affirms" me that I do know what I'm talking about!

Rebekah Ann Lamb is a Lecturer in Theology, Imagination and the Arts in the School of Divinity at St Mary's College at the University of St. Andrew in Scotland. Her research interests pique my interest:

Dr. Lamb focuses on intersections between theology, visual arts and literature, from the long nineteenth century to the present. However, her research and teaching has also led her into Biblical Studies, Dante, and Christian Personalism. She is especially interested in the religious and aesthetic implications of inter-art projects, such as Pre-Raphaelite poem and painting pairings, and links between writing and theology in the Victorian period and late modernity. Her research increasingly focuses on John Henry Newman, Christina Rossetti, TS Eliot, Catherine Doherty, and Michael O’Brien. She is completing a book on the aesthetic and religious implications of boredom in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (McGill-Queen’s University Press), and is currently co-editing a special issue on the life and thought of John Henry Newman with Michael D. Hurley (Cambridge) for Religion and Literature.

Dr Lamb has published articles, encyclopedia entries, book chapters, and review essays in The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing, New Blackfriars, Religions, Theology in Scotland, and elsewhere. A developing branch of her research involves a series of essays on the relationship between history, theology and formation--in the contexts of the university and digital culture--as informed by the thought of John Henry Newman, Stratford Caldecott and Joseph Ratzinger.

I'll be on the lookout for her book Suspended in Time: Boredom and Other Discontents in the Pre-Raphaelites and Their Circle and will subscribe to Religion and Literature forthwith.

CNA News Podcast

Last Wednesday, I recorded an interview for one of the Catholic News Agency's podcasts, the CNA Newsroom podcasts, which will be posted today. The producer, Kate Veik, asked me to talk about the Blessed Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne with a focus on a "good death", based on my 2017 article about the Carmelites on the National Catholic Register blog page. The interview should be posted today and there are various ways (apps) you can listen to it!

The Carmelites obviously died "good deaths": they offered their martyrdoms for an end to the bloodshed, violence, and anti-Catholicism of the Reign of Terror; they were true to Jesus and His Church and the vows they had made as cloistered religious.

It was nine (9) years ago on November 16, 2010 that I visited the site of their martyrdom, the grounds of the cemetery in which their bodies were buried in mass graves, and got as close as I could to their graveside behind a wall and a locked gate.

Podcasts from "The English Reformation Today"

I wrapped up my radio series, "The English Reformation Today" on Radio Maria last Saturday, October 20. Podcasts of almost all the episodes are here--one broadcast took place during the network's fall pledge drive, so I suppose they have not posted it since Father Young and I talked about the program and the pledge drive in the first few minutes.

This was an interesting venture--the time commitment was pretty intense with at least two hours of prep for the one hour of broadcast. It was a rather different kind of radio program because I was basically telling a story--the story of the English Reformation of the 16th century and the effects of its aftermath on Catholics until the 19th century, with some highlights of the 20th and even 2lst centuries. If you listened to the program or the podcasts and liked them, please contact Radio Maria at info@radiomaria.us and let the network know. I presume the programs will be repeated, but will try to find out more.

"The English Reformation Today" Podcasts

After the live Saturday broadcast of "The English Reformation Today", Radio Maria US repeats the show on Wednesday morning, and then the most recent podcast is uploaded to this page on their website.

Saturday, September 8's episode was the first part of a two part discussion of the reign of Elizabeth I and what it meant for Catholics in the 16th century:

Describe the legislation that established the Church of England as a via media compromise between Calvinism and Catholicism (The Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles). Catholic Reaction: The Northern Rebellion.The controversial excommunication of Elizabeth I by Pope St. Pius V--casting suspicion on all Catholics in England and leading to recusancy and martyrdom. Stories of early martyrs like St. Edmund Campion and St. Margaret Clitherow.

The most relevant issue today of the episode is the issue of divided loyalty and obedience to authority. To whom did English Catholics owe their homage? Their queen or the pope? For some reason--and this would be an interesting research project--the sixteenth century political order could not apply Jesus's Gospel admonition to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's and to God what is God's to the vision of a united polity. In the sixteenth century there was little or no notion of diversity or certainly plurality. Throughout Europe the motto cuius regno, eius religio (the religion of the ruler was the religion of the ruled) prevailed. The pope's position as a temporal ruler of the Papal States also confused the issue: were Catholics being loyal to their own nation or to a foreign power? The English government was convinced that Catholics could not be loyal to England even temporally if they were loyal to Rome even spiritually.

Now, our situation in the United States has parallels but some important distinctions too: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been pointing out since January this year, through the Fortnight for Freedom and even into the current political season, that religous liberty has been endangered by the U. S. Government through the HHS Contraceptive, Abortafacient, and Sterilization Mandate--especially because of the limited definition of a religious organization AND the lack of an opt-out conscience clause. Like the English Catholics of the sixteenth century, Catholic business owners, for example, have to choose between two loyalties, between their Church doctrine and the US Government law--if they wish to be faithful to God and His Church's teachings, they cannot comply with the state's new demands for loyalty. They will not suffer blood martyrdom, but they will be fined; they can fight the law in the Courts, but their risk is great. The most important distinction is that Catholics in the U.S.A. as citizens have opportunities/rights to campaign for change through legislation, the justice system, and the electoral system: Elizabeth I's Catholic subjects did not have these opportunities.

English Catholics pressed for a view that they were temporally loyal to Elizabeth I but spiritually loyal to Pope Pius V, and their respective successors. Elizabeth I, because of her instability on the throne, could not accept that view, although it was expressed by many of the Catholic martyrs even as they faced death--they could accept her as monarch but not as governor of the church in England. And then there came the "bloody question": when it came to armed conflict or invasion, with whom would they side, England or attacking Catholic power. That's the crucial question coming up in the next episode when we look at the Spanish Armada or the plots against Elizabeth I to replace her on the throne with Mary, the former Queen of Scots.

This Saturday, Sepember 15's episode will conclude the discussion of Elizabeth and introduce the new dynasty, the Stuarts of Scotland. By focusing on the two dangers to Elizabeth's throne, we'll also see the result of this divided loyality--even when Catholics DID support their country when facing invasion, they were punished by the state and when Catholics despaired of receiving any tolerance for their Faith in their own country, they turned to desparate measures, hoping for a change in leadership as the only means of relief:

Explain the two great dangers to Elizabeth and how they affected Catholics: her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada (plots led by Catholics to depose Elizabeth and replace her with Mary on England's throne and the Catholic position on the Spanish Armada). Describe the wave of martyrdoms of Catholic priests and laity after the Armada: why are they martyrs?  Describe the end of the Tudor dynasty and the transition to the Stuart dynasty--the status of Catholics in 1603.

Once the Elizabethan government designated all Catholic priests as traitors and most Catholic laymen as potential traitors, a long-lived anti-Catholicism developed in England: a prejudice that certainly emigrated from England to New England in the 17th century.

Episode Six of "The English Reformation Today"!

Since today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I'll begin this broadcast with the Collect for the Feast--and with the note that Elizabethan England celebrated the birth of the last Tudor monarch with more festivity than that of the Mother of God!

Starting with some biographical notes about Elizabeth Tudor (pictured at left: Wikipedia commons source), I'll then discuss her Reformation Parliament--Catholic resistance--the Via Media of the Church of England (39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. I'll also discuss how the compromise of the established church, between Calvinism and Catholicism, pleased no one, as "Puritans" were disappointed in the incomplete Reform and latent "Popishness" of the Church of England.

Then recusancy and resistance, rebellion and martyrdom will occupy much of the broadcast, as I discuss The Northern Rebellion, Pope St. Pius V's Papal Bull "Regnans in Excelsis", and the choice Catholics faced: loyalty to country; loyality to Church. The efforts of missionary priests; their dangerous missions; the laity's way of dealing with recusancy and conformity--those issues are very important and highlight the struggles and sacrifices of Catholics during Elizabeth's 45 year reign.

Next week, I'll wrap up the discussion of Elizabeth by looking at the diplomatic struggles she faced with Mary, Queen of Scots and Philip II of Spain--in the religious context of the 16th century, including war in the Spanish Netherlands, the Spanish Armada, reaction to its failure, war in Ireland, and the succession. This Virgin Queen left no offspring to follow her on the throne, so James VI of Scotland, Mary of Scotland's son, comes south in 1603 when Elizabeth dies.

Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation is an excellent resource for understanding this reign, although I do say so myself.  welcome all listeners of Radio Maria US to my blog, whether you're listening on one of their radio stations or on line or through one of their apps.  I invite you to call in with questions and comments toll-free at 866-333-MARY(6279). Just a reminder, too, that podcasts of previous episodes of The English Reformation Today are available on the Radio Maria US website.

Podcasts of The English Reformation Today

Podcasts of the first three episodes of my Radio Maria US show are now available and here is a link to the Program page:

“The English Reformation Today” tells the story of the English Reformation and its aftermath, focusing on how it affected Catholics in England after their Church was driven underground and their Faith and its practice outlawed. The series also highlights the on-going significance of the English Reformation today in many ways: issues of religious freedom; ecumenical issues between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, etc.

Episode One: August 4, 2012:  The English Reformation Today: Why is it relevant?

Relevance of the English Reformation for religious freedom issues in the United States (and around the world) today, including the HHS Mandate; context for the Personal Ordinariate established by Pope Benedict XVI for groups of Anglicans wishing to become Catholics; background for the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Distinction of the English Reformation from the Protestant Reformation on the Continent in the 16th century.

Episode Two: August 11, 2012: Before the Reformation:

Brief notes on changing interpretations of the English Reformation in historical studies. Description of the Catholic Church in England before the Reformation/Break from Rome: based on landmark study by Eamon Duffy, note the vitality and integration of Catholicism with everyday life in England: introduce some main characters of the story: Thomas More, Thomas Wolsey, John Fisher, Henry VIII.

Episode Three: August 18, 2012: Henry VIII and the Break from Rome:

Tell the story of why Henry VIII broke away from the Holy Father in Rome and established the Church of England with himself as the Supreme Head and Governor; describe the first martyrs (the Carthusians, Thomas More, John Fisher, etc); the Dissolution of the Monasteries; the death of Henry VIII and his legacy.

This Saturday, August 25, we will pick up where we left off last week with the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Then I'll describe the legacy of Henry VIII and the coming of a true Protestant--Calvinist--Reformation in England during the reign of his son, Edward VI.