The Cause of the Canonisation of John Henry Cardinal Newman

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Revisiting Newman’s past, his work goes on: Deacon Jack Sullivan in Oxford

Categorised as News and published Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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Sir Ivor Roberts, Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent, Revd Jack Sullivan, Father Paul Chavasse

From Thursday 14^th to Saturday 16^th November Deacon Jack Sullivan and his wife Carol visited Oxford. Jack Sullivan, whose healing through Cardinal Newman’s intercession will lead to his beatification next year, visited places linked to Newman’s life and influence in the city. Jack and his wife Carol were staying at the College at Littlemore, where Newman was received into the Catholic Church in 1845 (a separate article on their visit to Littlemore will be published soon).

On Thursday evening Jack was the guest of honour at a dinner in Trinity College, given by College President Sir Ivor Roberts. Newman was an undergraduate at Trinity in 1817, before winning a Fellowship at Oriel College in 1822. In 1887 Trinity elected Newman to its very first honorary fellowship. Present at the dinner was Princess Michael of Kent, a Newman devotee and friend of the Birmingham Oratory. Among other guests were the Catholic Chaplain to the University, Father John Moffatt, S.J., and Father Paul Chavasse, Actor of Newman’s Cause and Provost of the Birmingham Oratory.

On Friday Jack attended a reception at Oriel College, where as a Fellow he had a powerful academic and religious influence on his students and colleagues. Jack then visited the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, where Newman was Vicar from 1828-43. It was here that Newman preached many of his famous Parochial and Plain Sermons, and where the Assize Sermon was preached by John Keble in 1833, reckoned by Newman as the beginning of the ‘Oxford Movement’ and its eloquent resistance to State interference in the affairs the Church. Against the politicisation of the Faith, the ‘Movement’ insisted upon the divine nature of the Church and authentic spiritual renewal. Newman was ultimately to decide that these aspirations could not be fulfilled in the Church of England.

On Friday afternoon Jack returned to Trinity to view Newman’s own rooms, the Newman family Bible and a copy of the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) that he presented to the College. Trinity also has some of Newman’s hair, among the few primary relics in existence. Among those in attendance was the Principal of St Stephen’s House Anglican Theological College, Canon Robin Ward. Afterwards, Jack and Carol Sullivan went to the College Chapel where the Anglican Chaplain, Revd Emma Percy, led a ‘Reflection in words and music’ on aspects of Newman’s life and association with Trinity. As well as singing Newman hymns, an extract was read from one of Newman’s sermons: “What have we to do with its gifts and honours, who, having been already baptized into the world to come, are no longer citizens of this? Why should we be anxious for a long life, or wealth, or credit, or comfort, who know that the next world will be every thing which our hearts can wish, and that not in appearance only, but truly and everlastingly? Why should we rest in this world, when it is the token and promise of another? Why should we be content with its surface, instead of appropriating what is stored beneath it?”

On Saturday morning Jack visited the Oxford Oratory, where he was at the Deacon at the 10am Mass, celebrated by the Parish Priest, Father Daniel Seward. The Church of St Aloysius was served for most of its history by the Society of Jesus, who welcomed Newman himself to their Church to preach in 1880. The creation of the Oratory there in 1993 was the fulfilment of Newman’s desire to establish a Catholic mission in the city. In 1882 Newman wrote to Lord Braye: “The cardinal question for the moment is the Oxford question … The Undergraduates and Junior Fellows are like sheep without a shepherd. They are sceptics or inquirers, quite open for religious influences. It is a moment for the Catholic Mission in Oxford to seize an opportunity which never may come again … The Liberals are sweeping along in triumph, without any Catholic or religious influence to stem them now that Pusey and Liddon [Anglo-Catholic leaders] are gone.” In this letter, which Braye in Italian translation read out in person to Pope Leo XIII on 13 April 1883, Newman continued: “It is only one out of various manifestations of what may be called Nihilism in the Catholic Body, and its rulers. They forbid, but they do not direct or create. I should fill many sheets of paper if I continued my exposure of this fact … The Holy Father must be put up to this fact, and must be made to understand the state of things with us.”

Jack Sullivan’s final public engagement will be today, Sunday 15^th November, when he will attend a performance of the ‘Dream of Gerontius’ at the Oratory School near Reading, which Newman founded first in Edgbaston in 1859, and is now one of the best-known Catholic Schools in the country.

Clare Hopkins, Trinity College Archivist, shows Revd Jack Sullivan the Newman family Bible

Revd Jack Sullivan looks out of the window of Newman's room at Trinity

Mass at the Oxford Oratory Church, at which Revd Jack Sullivan was deacon

The Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the Oxford Oratory Church after Mass

Jack Sullivan with Tricia and Mary Curran, from Braintree M.A., near to Jack's home