ST. JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN–TO BE CANONIZED ON OCTOBER 13

If you don’t know this man you should. He is one of the most famous theologians in the past three hundred years. He’s the reason I’ve stayed Catholic. Many others would agree that he has kept them Catholic too. So glad he will be declared a saint. He was a brilliant theologian. And a writer of poems and hymns. Here is his most famous poem. It was my favorite in high school.

The Pillar of the Cloud

John Henry Newman (1801–90)

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I lov’d to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I lov’d the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride rul’d my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath bless’d me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have lov’d long since, and lost awhile.

Here’s what the Catholic Herald (UK) said today:

Blessed John Henry Newman will be canonised on Sunday, October 13, the Vatican has announced.

At a Consistory of cardinals on Monday, Pope Francis formally approved Newman’s canonisation along with that of Sister Mariam Thresia of India, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, and three others.

In February, the Pope signed a decree recognising a second miracle attributed to Blessed John Henry Newman, the inexplicable healing of a woman with a “life-threatening pregnancy”.

Blessed John Henry Newman was one of the most prominent converts to Catholicism from Anglicanism of the 19th century.

He was already an esteemed Anglican theologian when he founded the Oxford Movement to return the Church of England to its Catholic roots, before himself converting to the Catholic faith.

He was renowned as a brilliant thinker and was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII.

He died in Birmingham in 1890, aged 89, after founding the Birmingham Oratory.