Newman Circle Meeting

On Saturday we attended an open meeting with the Birmingham Newman Circle at the Oratory. It was a very interesting occasion, which featured two talks on the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, founder of the English Oratories and our church of the Immaculate Conception in Edgbaston.

The first talk was by Brother frank McGrath FMS about the impending publication of volume 32(!) of Neman's Letters & Diaries, based on recently discovered letters by Newman to all sorts of people and countries.

A feature of this talk was two pictures handed out, one of which I have scanned onto this post below. It is a sketch of Newman's funeral, with huge crowds on the Hagley Road lining the procession to the graveyard at Rednal. What an occasion that must have been! Even the Quakers on Bristol Road were out in force. The victorian building on the right is no longer there; replaced with a ghastly 60s affair. Behind it is the Oratory, with the House itself flush with the Hagley Road and clearly visible in the centre of the sketch.

Brother Lewis Berry (who is training for the priesthood as a member of Birmingham Oratory) also gave an excellent talk entitled "Christian Witness & Social Action" which I felt was particularly pertinent in light of this day and age. It gathered together strands of Newman's writings with that of Our Holy Father, Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est, giving us a true vision of Christian charitable endeavours. These should be based on the love of Christ for us as a foundation, and extend to others who must be loved as individuals and not means to an end.