¿Malas notas?

¿Malas notas?

Susana Moreu
Orientadora Familiar. Directora de comunicación de INEFA en Granada. Instituto de Estudios de la Familia
ESCUELA DE FAMILIA



El libro peligroso para los chicos
Hal y Gonn Iggulden


Claves para mejorar el rendimiento escolar en el próximo curso
A mi hijo le han quedado dos para septiembre. En 1° de la ESO aprobó por los pelos, y ahora en 2°, ha suspendido dos asignaturas. ¿Podrá remontar y empezar a sacar mejores notas en 3°, le podemos ayudar? Sí, por su puesto. Hay que comenzar desde el principio, motivarle, observar sus dificultades, reflexionar sobre el ambiente familiar y sobre todo, hacerle responsable y consecuente de sus actos.

Quizás tu hijo esté ahora estudiando para recuperar en septiembre esas asignaturas suspensas. El que le repitas continuamente "ponte a estudiar", es poco. Tenéis que pensar sobre otras circunstancias que le pueden afectar. Una vez que apruebe estas asignaturas, enfrentaros al próximo curso como un tiempo de recomenzar, máxime si no ha conseguido superar el curso y tiene que repetir. No importa, no es un fracasado, tiene posibilidades de remontar y conseguir ser un buen estudiante y lograr éxito académico.

Todos deseamos que nuestros hijos lleguen a ser personas maduras, capaces de tomar decisiones y afrontar sus consecuencias, en definitiva adultos responsables y felices. Qué duda cabe que la formación escolar de nuestros hijos es un ingrediente nada despreciable para tan ambicioso proyecto.

Educar en forma integral

El papel de la familia es determinante en el desarrollo de la personalidad de cada hijo, también en el éxito académico. Si nos preocupa mucho su rendimiento escolar, lo primero que tenemos que tener claro es que no es lo más importante, aunque parezca un contrasentido. Igual que cuando ejercitamos sólo una parte de nuestro cuerpo se atrofian las demás, no podemos cargar las tintas sólo en una faceta de la vida de nuestro hijo, en este caso, los estudios.

Tenemos que pararnos a pensar cómo le estamos educando en otras facetas de su personalidad, no solamente en los estudios. Así, para educar de forma integral también nos preocupamos y ocupamos de otros aspectos, porque en materia de formación y educación, todo está relacionado, algunas cosas influyen en otras.

¿Cuáles son esos aspectos?

*) Educación en valores. Responsabilidad en encargos de la casa y fuera de ella. Si tienen hábitos de colaborar en casa ganarán en habilidades sociales, serán más trabajadores, solidarios, eficaces, y como consecuencia, tendrán una mayor autoestima al verse resolutivos, algo que les ayudará en sus estudios.

*) Autoestima y buen apego entre padres e hijos. Más que criticarles o castigarles por los objetivos no cumplidos sobre los estudios y otras facetas, hay que fomentar y motivar por los objetivos alcanzados.

*) Actividades sociales. Tiempo libre. Administrar su tiempo es vital. Es normal que nuestros hijos sólo busquen divertirse, están en la edad. De ahí lo importante que es enseñarles a pasarlo bien, el saber disfrutar de nuestro tiempo libre es una virtud.

*) Los amigos. Los amigos ahora son lo primero, antes que la familia y los estudios, se pasan el día con ellos y siguen en casa por teléfono, móvil, chats, internet... Su vida social se centra casi en exclusiva en la escuela. Es muy común ver que chicos estupendos bajan en sus calificaciones por frecuentar "amistades peligrosas". Los padres no podemos elegir los amigos de nuestros hijos, pero sí el ambiente donde se forjan las amistades: el tipo de colegio y la formación que se imparte, el equipo deportivo, el club... Según sean sus amigos así van a ser nuestros hijos y sus estudios.

*) Estudio. Hábitos y técnicas de estudio. «Pero ¡si le ha quedado hasta el recreo!». Cuando los padres me vienen preocupados por los malos resultados de sus hijos, les suelo preguntar, entre otras cosas, qué encargos tienen dentro de casa, si salen con amigos, cómo son esos amigos, qué programas de televisión ven y cuanto tiempo, si pasan mucho tiempo frente al ordenador... Normalmente me miran con desconfianza pensando "esta buena mujer no se ha enterado que a mi hija le ha quedado hasta el recreo", ya que esperan algunas "técnicas de estudio" que le ayuden a memorizar.

Si educamos a nuestros hijos dentro de unos valores, estamos poniendo los cimientos para construir una personalidad equilibrada, generosa, con espíritu de superación, que valora el trabajo como medio de crecimiento personal y mejora de la sociedad. Y como consecuencia, les estaremos proporcionando las herramientas para estudiar y aprender mejor, que se verá reflejado en sacar buenas notas.

¿Quieres pasar de suspensos a notables o sobresalientes?

Quizás seas uno de los lectores que piensas: 'Ya me lo sé'; o quizás no. En cualquier caso, recorta este cuadro y ponlo en el corcho de la mesa de tu hijo, para que lo recordéis ambos una vez que comience el curso escolar.

- Dedicar un tiempo al estudio todos los días. Hora y media diaria en la ESO y tres horas en Bachillerato, aunque no se tengan deberes. Siempre se puede repasar la lección.

- Poner hora fija. Toda la familia trabajando en las horas de estudio. Esto es crear ambiente de estudio en casa. Los padres podemos aprovechar para hacer cosas de casa o trabajo, los hermanos pequeños "sus deberes" (colorear, recortar...). Si los hermanitos o los papás están viendo la tele, la radio está a toda pastilla, los pequeños jugando... Entonces parece que "la tarea" es una condena.

- Tener una habitación fija para trabajar. Sin teléfono, sin TV, sin ordenador, sin radio, bien sentados con mesa apropiada, no se estudia en la cama, ni recostados en el sillón bajo, las faldas de camilla calentitos...ya que entonces entran ganas de todo menos de estudiar.

- Orden en las tareas. El orden exterior, tener la mesa de estudio limpia y despejada, ayuda al orden interior, a la hora de memorizar, comprender. En el estudio-trabajo conviene empezar por la materia de mediana dificultad, se pasa a mayor dificultad y por último la de menor esfuerzo.

- Conocer cada día lo que le toca estudiar a tus hijos y los exámenes. En la ESO, debemos estar muy al corriente de sus exámenes, sus trabajos.

- Que hagan solos los deberes. . En la ESO ¡ya pueden hacerlos solos! Tenían que haber empezado en 3° de primaria. Sólo intervenir cuando no haya más remedio, hacerlos razonar.

- Acudir al profesor particular como último recurso. Para ello consultarlo con el tutor. Los niños que se acostumbran al profesor particular, se esfuerzan menos y se distraen más en clase, "porque ya se lo explica luego el "profe" en casa... "

- Fomentar la satisfacción del trabajo bien hecho. Sobre todo cuando son un poco "desastres", les hace ganar en autoestima.

- En los conflictos de clase no estar siempre de parte del profesor, ni siempre de parte de nuestro hijo. De entrada debemos tomar al profesor como nuestro principal aliado, dando por hecho su profesionalidad. Con los compañeros, lo mejor es no intervenir directamente, sino darle a nuestro hijo las herramientas suficientes, para que se sepa desenvolver.

- No magnificar los problemas. Cada curso es diferente. Hay profesores buenos y no tan buenos, y es muy educativo para nuestros hijos tratar con todo tipo de personas.

- Paciencia con los continuos conflictos dentro de casa. Los continuos enfrentamientos entre hijos adolescentes y padres, sólo son un pulso con el que el adolescente busca poner los límites. No podemos ceder ante sus berrinches.

- Ver sus capacidades y pedir lo que puede dar. Sobresalientes, si puede sacarlos y bienes, si no llega a más. Fomentar la asignatura que mejor se le da. ,

Para pensar…

* No lo digas a tu hijo que es un desastre. Motívale. Valórale. El puede estudiar mejor, concentrarse más. Habla con él de sus dificultades y pensar entre todos, vosotros y vuestro hijo, cuáles son las dificultades reales que tiene ante el estudio.

* Habla con el tutor con sinceridad. Él le conoce en clase y vosotros en casa. Observar si está desmotivado por algún problema con amigos, con el profesor, etc. Poner medios y preguntar cómo puede aprobar o sacar mejor nota en las asignaturas que se le dan peor.

* La lectura, como siempre, mejora el rendimiento escolar. Tus hijos tienen que entender que es una actividad muy ligada al estudio en lo referido al nivel de expresión y comprensión oral y escrita.

* No te obsesiones por tener hijos “magacualificados”, donde solo caben los currículum "diez". No queremos ratones de bibliotecas sino hijos felices. Ahora bien, donde pueda sacar un diez porque se le da mejor, que lo saque.

* Pregunta en el colegio sobre ciertas técnicas de estudio (subrayado, esquema, memorización) y comprueba que tu hijo las está aplicando.

* Los padres no debemos hacer a nuestros hijos blandos, ni demasiado exigentes. La palabra cansado la debemos borrar del vocabulario. Uno saca buenas notas cuando se cansa. No deben sentirse víctimas. Si él ha sacado horas de estudio de verdad, si le habéis comentado la asignatura, si le has preguntado, si hay buen ambiente en casa, lo normal es que saque buenas notas, pero si no lo consigue, resalta más su esfuerzo personal.

… y actuar

* Comenzar el curso informándoos sobre las materias, los exámenes, las dificultades que puede tener en el aprendizaje de cada asignatura, los refuerzos que le pueden ayudar a tu hijo. No esperes a octubre. En septiembre ya puedes hablar con el tutor o los profesores de las asignaturas que le cuestan más a tu hijo.

¿Me presta el martillo, por favor?

¿Me presta el martillo, por favor?

Josep Tàpies
Titular de la Cátedra de Empresa Familiar del IESE
Universidad de Navarra
17 de marzo de 2008 Expansión (Madrid)




Cómo convertirse en un icono progre
Pablo Molina




La loca imaginación
La historia es muy popular. Nuestro protagonista se dirige hacia la casa de su vecino con la sana intención de pedirle un martillo prestado. Mientras sube las escaleras, empieza a imaginar cuál será su reacción ante la petición. “¿Pensará que soy un aprovechado? ¿Un tacaño, quizás? A lo mejor no quiere prestármelo y busca cualquier excusa…”. A cada nuevo peldaño, añade nuevos elementos negativos a la historia hasta que, al final, casi inconscientemente, en cuanto el vecino abre la puerta, en lugar de pedirle amablemente el martillo le suelta: “¿Sabe qué le digo? Que no necesito para nada su maldito martillo. Adiós”.

Cuando la imaginación y la proyección sustituyen a los hechos objetivos, la historia del martillo se hace realidad. Todos hemos protagonizado en alguna ocasión esta historia.

Seguro que alguna vez no habremos entendido un desplante, habremos considerado excesivo un reproche o juzgado tremendamente injusta una acusación. Jugaremos, en esta ocasión, el papel del vecino que, al abrir la puerta, escucha atónito de boca de su vecino que puede guardarse su martillo porque quien lo pide no lo necesita para nada.

Y al revés. También habremos protagonizado situaciones en las que éramos nosotros quienes reprochábamos o acusábamos ante la mirada atónita de nuestro interlocutor, que no acababa de entender las razones y motivos que sustentaban nuestra malhumorada protesta.

Falta de comunicación Estas situaciones tienen su base en la desconfianza de, al menos, uno de sus protagonistas. Al igual que le sucede a nuestro ficticio protagonista, son muchas las ocasiones en las que las personas tienden a imaginar intenciones y voluntades ajenas sin tener la valentía suficiente para preguntar abiertamente si lo que creemos es cierto o sólo tiene cabida en nuestra imaginación.

En la empresa familiar, se viven a diario escenas como la del martillo, agravadas por la emotividad propia de los lazos de sangre. Padres que esperan algo de los hijos, hijos que a su vez esperan algo de los padres, hermanos con un largo listado de reproches mutuos, celos, frustraciones… Hay una larga lista de elementos que puede llevarnos a la frase: “Quédese con su maldito martillo”.

La comunicación y la confianza son, habitualmente, herramientas más que suficientes para desactivar el efecto martillo. No hay que imaginar. Hay que preguntar, explicitar nuestro punto de vista, establecer con claridad cuáles son nuestras expectativas, expresarnos cuando algo nos ha ofendido o nos resulta molesto.

Si no se desarrolla esta capacidad de franco diálogo entre los miembros de la familia empresaria, los problemas tenderán a engrandecerse y a eternizarse hasta que, en el momento menos oportuno, se hagan visibles de un modo poco apropiado.

Con serenidad y afecto No hay duda de que si nuestro protagonista, lejos de fantasear sobre cuál iba a ser la reacción del vecino, se hubiese limitado a pedir educadamente la herramienta, hubiera obtenido mayor beneficio puesto que, a buen seguro, el dueño del martillo hubiese accedido a la petición.

Entre imaginar y hablar claro no hay ninguna duda sobre lo que resulta más conveniente y más beneficioso. En la naturaleza humana, está la desavenencia pero, por fortuna, también la capacidad para el fortalecimiento de las relaciones a través del diálogo y, en el caso de las familias, también de los sentimientos.

Volvamos para concluir a la historia del martillo e inventemos un final nuevo: el dueño de la herramienta, en lugar de sentirse ofendido por el desplante del vecino, responde con amabilidad: “No se preocupe, la verdad es que ahora no lo necesito. Tenga y ya me lo devolverá cuando pueda”. ¿Imposible? No, si somos capaces de ponernos en lugar del otro y vermás allá de sus miedos e incapacidad de expresión. La franqueza y la sinceridad es un trabajo de todos; el ejercicio de alteridad y comprensión,

Padres e hijos

Padres e hijos

Ignacio Uría
Facultad de Comunicación
Universidad de Navarra
La Gaceta de los Negocios (Madrid)



Más allá del sí, te quiero
Aníbal Cuevas



Lo que es más importante
Thierry Henry es negro y francés. Xabi Alonso blanco y español. Henry jugó en Inglaterra y ahora lo hace en España, mientras que Alonso hizo el camino a la inversa.

Los dos son futbolistas de prestigio, ganan millones de euros y defienden la camiseta de equipos famosos. Ambos acaparan portadas y son admirados por multitudes que disfrutan con la magia de sus botas.

Ambos, también, son padres. Henry de una niña a la que apenas ve –“cinco veces en ocho meses”–, ya que está divorciado y su ex mujer es su enemiga más íntima. Ese problema familiar está influyendo en su juego y el FC Barcelona, que le necesita con urgencia, no sabe cómo ayudarle. Él se confiesa ante la prensa y dice “Sufro por no ver a mi hija porque ella es lo más importante de mi vida. Quien es padre sabe a lo que me refiero”.

Xabi Alonso, que juega en el Liverpool, pidió un día de permiso para estar en el nacimiento de su primer hijo. Su entrenador, Benítez, se hizo el sordo y le ordenó viajar con el equipo a Milán para jugar un partido de Champions contra el Inter de Milán. Alonso, que es vasco y silencioso –por este orden–, no dijo nada. O más bien sí, porque habló con los hechos y decidió quedarse en Inglaterra. “Mi esposa y mi hijo son lo primero, así que no voy a Italia. Habrá otras eliminatorias y yo podré jugarlas, pero ahora mi esposa me necesita a su lado”. Es decir, si Benítez se enfada que se enfade.

Son historias viejas con soluciones nuevas. Vidas de padres e hijos, de personas que van a contracorriente, de pioneros. Historias de jerarquías y de valores que se abren paso, aunque tengan por delante un camino largo.

Al final, sin embargo, queda una certeza: cuando el fútbol haya olvidado a Henry y a Alonso serán sus hijos los que les devuelvan –con incremento– todo el cariño recibido.

Educación del sentimiento

Educación del sentimiento

Alfonso Aguiló
www.interrogantes.net



Los cuatro amores
C. S. Lewis





El sentimiento y su valor
"La experiencia de la vida —dice Enrique Rojas — es siempre dolorosa y difícil. Cualquier biografía está surcada por cordilleras de obstáculos y frustraciones. Asomarse a la vida ajena es descubrir sus desgarros, las señales de la lucha con uno mismo y con su entorno, pero también la grandeza del esfuerzo por salir adelante, por eso que se llama vivir. La vida es un forcejeo permanente con las adversidades, un intento por solucionar las dificultades, apoyado por el amor y el trabajo".

Cualquier historia personal pasa por momentos de dolor, y lo habitual es que sean frecuentes y que llenen la vida de cicatrices que van curtiendo al hombre. Pretender que la vida transcurra sin penalidades ni agobios de ninguna clase, es una ingenuidad. Por eso, cuando para actuar queramos esperar siempre a la llegada de sentimientos favorables, nos exponemos a entrar en una dinámica de gran dependencia de los estados de ánimo; sería como un cándido deseo de prolongar indefinidamente las diversiones y la falta de responsabilidad infantiles.

La persona sentimental se siente casi incapaz de sacrificarse por algo que no suponga un beneficio a muy corto plazo: no se pondrá seriamente a estudiar un examen hasta poco antes del día fijado; para que consiga leer un libro tendrá que ser muy entretenido desde las primeras páginas; para animarse a hacer cualquier plan, tiene que apetecerle muchísimo; si una relación de amistad o de convivencia pasa por algún altibajo, probablemente no sepa superarlo.

No será capaz de continuar en cuanto unas nubes de tormenta emborronen un poco el horizonte. "Parece como si el sentimiento hubiese ocupado en esas personas el lugar de la facultad de pensar. En vez de razonar, de entender..., ellos sienten. Sólo puede convencerles lo que agrade sus sentimientos".

Ni tanto ni tan calvo A golpe de sentimiento no se puede edificar.

—Por lo que dices, parece como si el ideal fuera ser persona sin sentimientos, estoica, espartana, sin corazón...

Hay que encontrar un equilibrio entre este extremo y su contrario. Tan peligroso es el hombre frío, racional y sin sentimientos, como aquél que es todo un monumento al sentimentalismo romántico. Es un equilibrio difícil, pero del que depende en mucho el acierto en el vivir.

Ante el peligro del sentimentalismo, la primera reacción podría ser de rechazo de los sentimientos. Sin embargo, está comprobado que sin la ayuda de los sentimientos bien orientados, el intelecto es débil frente al ambiente. No se trata, pues, de prescindir de ellos, sino de saber encauzarlos.

Un problema de educación "Por cada persona que necesita ser protegido de un frágil exceso de sensibilidad —dice Lewis— hay tres que necesitan ser despertados del letargo de la fría mediocridad. La correcta precaución contra el sentimentalismo es la de inculcar sentimientos adecuados. Un corazón duro no es protección infalible si va acompañado de una mente débil".

No se trata, pues, de ser frío, ni calculador, ni deshumano. Para educar la propia afectividad hay que cultivar esos sentimientos de persona de buen corazón y profundamente humana; que desea ayudar a quien lo necesita, consolar al que está triste, acompañar al que ha sido despreciado, perdonar a ése que le ofendió, querer a todos; que se siente afectado por el sufrimiento de los demás, que comprende, que perdona.

Y conviene también poner entusiasmo en las cosas. Las pasiones —hemos dicho— no son malas, si las sabemos orientar hacia el bien, si están bajo el señorío del entendimiento: hemos de soñar, aunque sin ser soñadores; saber encontrar ilusiones en las cosas de cada día, pero sin ser ilusos ni irreflexivos. Se trata de que las cosas no se hagan sólo por ilusión o sólo por entusiasmo: el entusiasmo no puede ser el motor, sino una valiosa ayuda, como una vela que nos empuja cuando el viento sopla a favor, pero de la que no podemos depender en exclusiva.

Dia 6 III Domingo de Pascua

Día 6 III Domingo de Pascua


Evangelio: Lc 24, 13-35 Ese mismo día, dos de ellos se dirigían a una aldea llamada Emaús, que distaba de Jerusalén sesenta estadios. Iban conversando entre sí de todo lo que había acontecido. Y mientras comentaban y discutían, el propio Jesús se acercó y se puso a caminar con ellos, aunque sus ojos eran incapaces de reconocerle. Y les dijo:
—¿De qué veníais hablando entre vosotros por el camino?
Y se detuvieron entristecidos. Uno de ellos, que se llamaba Cleofás, le respondió:
—¿Eres tú el único forastero en Jerusalén que no sabe lo que ha pasado allí estos días?
Él les dijo:
—¿Qué ha pasado?
Y le contestaron:
—Lo de Jesús el Nazareno, que fue un profeta poderoso en obras y palabras delante de Dios y ante todo el pueblo: cómo los príncipes de los sacerdotes y nuestros magistrados lo entregaron para ser condenado a muerte y lo crucificaron. Sin embargo nosotros esperábamos que él sería quien redimiera a Israel. Pero con todo, es ya el tercer día desde que han pasado estas cosas. Bien es verdad que algunas mujeres de las que están con nosotros nos han sobresaltado, porque fueron al sepulcro de madrugada y, como no encontraron su cuerpo, vinieron diciendo que habían tenido una visión de ángeles, que les dijeron que está vivo. Después fueron algunos de los nuestros al sepulcro y lo hallaron tal como dijeron las mujeres, pero a él no le vieron.
Entonces Jesús les dijo:
—¡Necios y torpes de corazón para creer todo lo que anunciaron los Profetas! ¿No era preciso que el Cristo padeciera estas cosas y así entrara en su gloria?
Y comenzando por Moisés y por todos los Profetas les interpretó en todas las Escrituras lo que se refería a él. Llegaron cerca de la aldea adonde iban, y él hizo ademán de continuar adelante. Pero le retuvieron diciéndole:
—Quédate con nosotros, porque se hace tarde y está ya anocheciendo.
Y entró para quedarse con ellos. Y cuando estaban juntos a la mesa tomó el pan, lo bendijo, lo partió y se lo dio. Entonces se les abrieron los ojos y le reconocieron, pero él desapareció de su presencia. Y se dijeron uno a otro:
—¿No es verdad que ardía nuestro corazón dentro de nosotros, mientras nos hablaba por el camino y nos explicaba las Escrituras?
Y al instante se levantaron y regresaron a Jerusalén, y encontraron reunidos a los once y a los que estaban con ellos, que decían:
—El Señor ha resucitado realmente y se ha aparecido a Simón.
Y ellos se pusieron a contar lo que había pasado en el camino, y cómo le habían reconocido en la fracción del pan.

Vida de fe

En distintos momentos advierte Jesús que aceptar su doctrina reclama la virtud de la fe por parte de sus discípulos. Lo recuerda de modo especial a sus Apóstoles; a aquellos que escogió para que, siguiéndole más de cerca todos los días, vivieran para difundir su doctrina. Serían responsables de esa tarea, de modo especial, a partir de su Ascensión a los cielos, a partir del momento en que ya no le vería la gente, ni ellos contarían con su presencia física, ni con sus palabras, ni con la fuerza persuasiva de sus milagros.

Metidos de lleno en la Pascua –tiempo de alegría porque consideramos la vida gloriosa a la que Dios nos ha destinado–, meditamos en la virtud de la fe, le decimos al Señor como los Apóstoles: auméntanos la fe: concédenos un convencimiento firme, inmutable de tu presencia entre nosotros y, por ello, de tu victoria, por el auxilio que nos has prometido. Que nos apoyemos en tu palabra, Señor, ya que son las tuyas palabras de vida eterna. Así lo declaró Pedro, cabeza de los Apóstoles, cuando bastantes dudaron y se alejaron: ¿A quién iremos? –afirmó, en cambio, el Príncipe de los Apóstoles– Tú tienes palabras de vida eterna.

A poco de haber convivido con Jesús, todos comprendían que merecía un asentimiento de fe. Si tuvierais fe... Creed..., les animaba el Señor. Era necesario, sin embargo, afirmar su enseñanza expresamente, recordarla y establecerla como criterio básico de comportamiento. Era fundamental tener muy claro que si podían estar seguros, al declarar su doctrina infalible e inefable, era por ser doctrina de Jesucristo: el Hijo de Dios encarnado.

Todos fueron testigos de los mismos milagros y escucharon las mismas palabras, con idéntica autoridad, con el mismo afán de entrega por todos; y, sin embargo, solamente Pedro es capaz de confesar expresamente la fe que Jesús merece: ¿A quién iremos?. Tú tienes palabras de vida eterna, delara el Apostol y Jesús confirma. Y lo que es de Dios, es para siempre: el Cielo y la tierra pasarán, pero mis palabras no pasarán, nos aseguró.

Queremos tener un convencimiento como el que espera Jesús, como ese que echa de menos en los dos Apóstoles que hoy nos presenta san Lucas, desencantados –con motivo, podríamos pensar– porque habían sido testigos de lo que consideraban el fracaso de Cristo: en quien confiaban, había sido finalmente derrotado. Jesús había muerto, como uno más, pesar de sus muchos milagros anteriores, a pesar de que tantas veces había escapado incólume de unos y de otros, a pesar de aquella majestad que le era connatural y que había admirado a todos. Con su muerte, sin embargo, todo lo anterior quedaba en entredicho y el desencanto bloqueaba a los suyos y hacía felices a sus adversarios.

Pero hoy, por el contrario, se nos presenta Jesús glorioso y vivo como nunca. Con una vida definitivamente inmortal. Esa vida humana y para la eternidad, a la que nos llama reclamando nuestra fe: nuestro asentimiento incondicionado interior y exteriormente; es decir, también con nuestra conducta, con obras que manifiesten nuestra adhesión y confianza en Dios. Son las obras y la conducta de aquellos dos, una vez convencidos de la resurrección. A pesar de la hora y del desánimo de un rato antes, vuelven a Jerusalén porque es preciso hacer justicia al Señor y a su doctrina. No hay tiempo que perder. En un momento, han recobrado el ánimo; y la presencia de los otros Apóstoles reunidos, que también sabían ya por la aparición a Pedro de Jesús resucitado, se lo confirma.

Con los Doce está María, la madre de Jesús y Madre nuestra, que persevera en oración junto a los discípulos de su Hijo. Ella, que recibió la alabanza de su prima Isabel: bienaventurada tú que has creído..., nos conducirá, si se lo pedimos, a una fe inconmovible para vivir de las verdades que nos ha manifestado Cristo; las únicas que conducen a la intimidad de Dios, Padre, Hijo y Espíritu Santo: la vida a la que nos llama Nuestro Padre Dios en Cristo.

La Anunciacion

Día 31 Solemnidad: La Anunciación del Señor

Evangelio: Lc 1, 26-38 En el sexto mes fue enviado el ángel Gabriel de parte de Dios a una ciudad de Galilea llamada Nazaret, a una virgen desposada con un varón que se llamaba José, de la casa de David. La virgen se llamaba María.
Y entró donde ella estaba y le dijo:
—Dios te salve, llena de gracia, el Señor es contigo.
Ella se turbó al oír estas palabras, y consideraba qué podía significar este saludo. Y el ángel le dijo:
—No temas, María, porque has hallado gracia delante de Dios: concebirás en tu seno y darás a luz un hijo, y le pondrás por nombre Jesús. Será grande y será llamado Hijo del Altísimo; el Señor Dios le dará el trono de David, su padre, reinará eternamente sobre la casa de Jacob y su Reino no tendrá fin.
María le dijo al ángel:
—¿De qué modo se hará esto, pues no conozco varón?
Respondió el ángel y le dijo:
—El Espíritu Santo descenderá sobre ti, y el poder del Altísimo te cubrirá con su sombra; por eso, el que nacerá Santo será llamado Hijo de Dios. Y ahí tienes a Isabel, tu pariente, que en su ancianidad ha concebido también un hijo, y la que llamaban estéril está ya en el sexto mes, porque para Dios no hay nada imposible.
Dijo entonces María:
—He aquí la esclava del Señor, hágase en mí según tu palabra.
Y el ángel se retiró de su presencia.

Aprendiendo a querer


La anunciación a María
Paul Claudel




Dios mío, quisiera escucharte yo también, con mi oído interior atento, sin filtros de prejuicios. No vaya a ser que casi sólo oiga lo de siempre: lo mío, mis palabras, muy razonadas –eso sí–, pero no las tuyas. Necesito librarme de ese monólogo, casi permanente, aunque pierda la tranquilidad y la seguridad de no tener quien se me oponga.

María, que es la misma inocencia y no desea otra cosa sino agradar a su Dios, alienta sin cesar su disposición de servir a su Señor. Vive todos los días de la ilusión por complacerle en cada detalle, poniendo todo su ser en amarle. Se siente contemplada por su Creador y a la vez segura, sabiendo que Él conoce hasta el más delicado movimiento de su espíritu, mientras ella, llena de paz y alegre como nadie, va plasmando en sus obras el amor que le tiene.

María se turbó, dice el evangelista. Acababa de escuchar un singular saludo, que era la más grande alabanza jamás pronunciada. Con su clarísima inteligencia había entendido bien: era un saludo de parte de Dios, un saludo afectuoso a Ella de parte del Creador. Las palabras que escucha indican que el mensajero viene de parte del Altísimo, que conoce la intimidad habitual entre Dios y Ella; por eso se dirige a María, pero no por su nombre. En María, lo más propio, más aún que su nombre, es su plenitud de Gracia. Así la llama el Angel: Llena de Gracia. Es la criatura que tiene más de Dios, a quien el Creador más ha amado. Y María correspondió siempre, del todo y libremente, con su amor al amor divino.

A partir de la disposición de María el Angel le transmite su mensaje. Como afirma Juan Pablo II, Dios "busca al hombre movido por su corazón de Padre": no debemos temer a Dios. Las palabras de Gabriel –tan intensas– y lo inesperado del mensaje, posiblemente sobrecogieron a Nuestra Madre, pero no tenía por qué temer, le dice el Angel. Su presencia ante ella, por el contrario, era motivo de gran gozo: el Señor la había escogido entre todas las mujeres, entre todas las que habían existido y las que existirían: el Verbo Eterno iba a nacer como Hombre, para redimir a la humanidad, y Ella sería su Madre.

¿Tenemos miedo a Dios? De Él sólo podemos esperar bondades, aunque nos supongan una cierta exigencia. ¿Tememos preguntarnos si nuestras conductas son de su agrado, no sea que debamos rectificar? Queramos mirar al Señor cara a cara, francamente, como mira un niño ilusionado el rostro de su padre, esperando siempre cariño, comprensión, consuelo, ayuda...

No se puede pensar en la respuesta de María como en algo independiente de sus disposiciones habituales. Su sí a Dios cuando contesta a Gabriel, vino a ser la formalización actual de lo que siempre había querido.

Señor, que vea; te pido como Bartimeo, aquel ciego al que curaste. Que Te vea. Que vea qué esperas de mí. Quiero escuchar tu llamada, en cada circunstancia de mi vida y, como María, para mi vida entera... Entiendo que conoces los detalles de mi andar terreno y prevés lo que llamo bueno y lo que llamo malo y que todo es ocasión de amarte. Ayúdame a intentarlo sinceramente, de verdad. Enséñame a hacer tu voluntad, porque eres mi Dios, te pido con el Salmista. Enséñame a confiar en tu Bondad omnipotente.

No temas, María –le dice Gabriel, antes incluso de manifestarle en detalle la Voluntad del Señor. Y, luego, el mensaje mismo incluye los motivos de seguridad y optimismo: que cuenta con todo el favor de Dios y que será obra del Espíritu Santo la concepción y mantendrá su virginidad... Finalmente, recibe también una prueba de otra acción poderosa de Dios: la fecundidad de Isabel, porque para Dios no hay nada imposible, concluye el arcángel.

Cuando nos habituamos a comtemplar a Dios –Señor de la historia: de la mía– presente en los sucesos de cada jornada, tenemos paz. Lo sentimos como un Padre inspirando y protegiendo cada paso nuestro: queriéndonos. Porque nos comprende y nos sonríe con el cariño afectuoso de siempre. También cuando, quizá sin darnos mucha cuenta, intentamos rebajar la exigencia sin verdadero motivo, "escurrir el bulto". Es que no es obligación, discurrimos. Y le escuhamos en el fondo del alma: "¿Me quieres?" Y ya sabemos que a la pregunta por el amor se responde con la vida: "que obras son amores..."

Ayúdame, Señor, a decirte siempre que sí. Auméntame la fe para ver más claramente qué esperas de mí cada mañana y cada tarde. El "sí" de María, el día de la Anunciación, fue a ser Madre de Dios. El Verbo se hizo humano en sus entrañas, por el Espíritu Santo y su consentimiento. Nuestros "sí" a Dios de todos los días, se parecen a los que Nuestra Madre pronunciaba de continuo, amando a Dios en cada momento y circunstancia de la vida. Eran en María enamoradas afirmaciones –silenciosas casi siempre– de una conversación que no termina, como no terminan nunca las palabras de afecto en los enamorados, aunque sólo se contemplen. Madre mía enséñame a querer.

Cardinal John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman
(1801-1890)

Cardinal-Deacon of St. George in Velabro, divine, philosopher, man of letters, leader of the Tractarian Movement, and the most illustrious of English converts to the Church.

Born in the City of London, 21 February, 1801, the eldest of six children, three boys and three girls; died at Edgbaston, Birmingham, 11 August, 1890. Over his descent there has been some discussion as regards the paternal side. His father was John Newman, a banker, his mother Jemima Fourdrinier, of a Huguenot family settled in London as engravers and paper-makers. It is stated that the name was at one time spelt Newmann; it is certain that many Jews, English or foreign, have borne it; and the suggestion has been thrown out that he was of Jewish descent. But no documentary evidence has been found to confirm the suggestion. His French pedigree is undoubted. It accounts for his religious training, a modified Calvinism, which he received at his mother's knees; and perhaps it helped towards the "lucid concision" of his phrase when dealing with abstruse subjects. His brother Francis William, also a writer, but wanting in literary charm, turned from the English Church to Deism; Charles Robert, the second son, was very erratic, and professed Atheism. One sister, Mary, died young; Jemima has a place in the cardinal's biography during the crisis of his Anglican career; and to a daughter of Harriet, Anne Mozley, we are indebted for his "Letters and Correspondence" down to 1845, which contains a sequel from his own hand to the "Apologia."

A classic from the day it was completed, the "Apologia" will ever be the chief authority for Newman's early thoughts, and for his judgment on the great religious revival known as the Oxford Movement, of which he was the guide, the philosopher, and the martyr. His immense correspondence, the larger portion of which still awaits publication, cannot essentially change our estimate of one who, though subtle to a degree bordering on refinement, was also impulsive and open with his friends, as well as bold in his confidences to the public. From all that is thus known of him we may infer that Newman's greatness consisted in the union of originality, amounting to genius of the first rank, with a deep spiritual temper, the whole manifesting itself in language of perfect poise and rhythm, in energy such as often has created sects or Churches, and in a personality no less winning than sensitive. Among the literary stars of his time Newman is distinguished by the pure Christian radiance that shines in his life and writings. He is the one Englishman of that era who upheld the ancient creed with a knowledge that only theologians possess, a Shakespearean force of style, and a fervour worthy of the saints. It is this unique combination that raises him above lay preachers de vanitate mundi like Thackeray, and which gives him a place apart from Tennyson and Browning. In comparison with him Keble is a light of the sixth magnitude, Pusey but a devout professor, Liddon a less eloquent Lacordaire. Newman occupies in the nineteenth century a position recalling that of Bishop Butler in the eighteenth. As Butler was the Christian champion against Deism, so Newman is the Catholic apologist in an epoch of Agnosticism, and amid the theories of evolution. He is, moreover, a poet, and his "Dream of Gerontius" far excels the meditative verse of modern singers by its happy shadowing forth in symbol and dramatic scenes of the world behind the veil.

He was brought up from a child to take great delight in reading the Bible; but he had no formed religious convictions until he was fifteen. He used to wish the Arabian tales were true; his mind ran on unknown influences; he thought life possibly a dream, himself an angel, and that his fellow-angels might be deceiving him with the semblance of a material world. He was "very superstitious" and would cross himself on going into the dark. At fifteen he underwent "conversion", though not quite as Evangelicals practise it; from works of the school of Calvin he gained definite dogmatic ideas; and as he rested "in the thought of two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator." In other words, personality became the primal truth in his philosophy; not matter, law, reason, or the experience of the senses. Henceforth, Newman was a Christian mystic, and such he remained. From the writings of Thomas Scott of Aston Sandford, "to whom, humanly speaking", he says, "I almost owe my soul", he learned the doctrine of the Trinity, supporting each verse of the Athanasian Creed with texts from Scripture. Scott's aphorisms were constantly on his lips for years, "Holiness rather than peace", and "Growth is the only evidence of life." Law's "Serious Call" had on the youth a Catholic or ascetic influence; he was born to be a missionary; thought it was God's will that he should lead a single life; was enamoured of quotations from the Fathers given in Milner's "Church History", and, reading Newton on the Prophecies, felt convinced that the pope was Antichrist. He had been at school at Ealing near London from the age of seven. Always thoughtful, shy, and affectionate, he took no part in boys' games, began to exercise his pen early, read the Waverley Novels, imitated Gibbon and Johnson, matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, December, 1816, and in 1818 won a scholarship of 60 pounds tenable for nine years. In 1819 his father's bank suspended payment, but soon discharged its liabilities in full. Working too hard for his degree, Newman broke down, and gained in 1821 only third-class honors. But his powers could not be hidden. Oriel was then first in reputation and intellect among the Oxford Colleges, and of Oriel he was elected a fellow, 12 April, 1822. He ever felt this to be "the turning point in his life, and of all days most memorable."

In 1821 he had given up the intention of studying for the Bar, and resolved to take orders. As tutor of Oriel, he considered that he had a cure of souls; he was ordained on 13 June, 1824; and at Pusey's suggestion became curate of St. Clement's, Oxford, where he spent two years in parochial activity. And here the views in which he had been brought up disappointed him; Calvinism was not a key to the phenomena of human nature as they occur in the world. It would not work. He wrote articles on Cicero, etc., and his first "Essay on Miracles", which takes a strictly Protestant attitude, to the prejudice of those alleged outside Scripture. But he also fell under the influence of Whateley, afterwards Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, who, in 1825, made him his vice-principal at St. Mary's Hall. Whateley stimulated him by discussion, taught him the notion of Christianity as a social and sovereign organism distinct from the State, but led him in the direction of "liberal" ideas and nominalistic logic. To Whateley's once famous book on that subject Newman contributed. From Hawkins, whom his casting vote made Provost of Oriel, he gained the Catholic doctrines of tradition and baptismal regeneration, as well as a certain precision of terms which, long afterwards, gave rise to Kingsley's misunderstanding of Newman's methods in writing. By another Oxford clergyman he was taught to believe in the Apostolic succession. And Butler's "Analogy", read in 1823, made an era in his religious opinions. It is probably not too much to say that this deep and searching book became Newman's guide in life, and gave rise not only to the "Essay on Development" but to the "Grammar of Assent." In particular it offered a rejective account of ethics and conscience which confirmed his earliest beliefs in a lawgiver and judge intimately present to the soul. On another line it suggested the sacramental system, or the "Economy", of which the Alexandrians Clement and St. Athanasius are exponents. To sum up, at this formative period the sources whence Newman derived his principles as well as his doctrines were Anglican and Greek, not Roman or German. His Calvinism dropped away; in time he withdrew from the Bible Society. He was growing fiercely anti-Erastian; and Whateley saw the elements of a fresh party in the Church gathering round one whom Oriel had chosen for his intellectual promise, but whom Oxford was to know as a critic and antagonist of the "March of Mind."

His college in 1828 made him Vicar of St. Mary's (which was also the university church), and in its pulpit he delivered the "Parochial Sermons", without eloquence or gesture, for he had no popular gifts, but with a thrilling earnestness and a knowledge of human nature seldom equalled. When published, it was said of them that they "beat all other sermons out of the market as Scott's tales beat all other stories." They were not controversial; and there is little in them to which Catholic theology would object. Their chastened style, fertility of illustration, and short sharp energy, have lost nothing by age. In tone they are severe and often melancholy, as if the utterance of an isolated spirit. Though gracious and even tenderhearted, Newman's peculiar temper included deep reserve. He had not in his composition, as he says, a grain of conviviality. He was always the Oxford scholar, no democrat, suspicious of popular movements; but keenly interested in political studies as bearing on the fortunes of the Church. This disposition was intensified by his friendship with Keble, whose "Christian Year" came out in 1827, and with R. Hurrell Froude, a man of impetuous thought and self-denying practice. In 1832 he quarrelled with Dr. Hawkins, who would not endure the pastoral idea which Newman cherished of his college work. He resigned his tutorship, went on a long voyage round the Mediterranean with Froude, and came back to Oxford, where on 14 July, 1833, Keble preached the Assize sermon on "National Apostasy." That day, the anniversary of the French Revolution, gave birth to the Oxford Movement.

Newman's voyage to the coasts of North Africa, Italy, Western Greece, and Sicily (December, 1832-July, 1833) was a romantic episode, of which his diaries have preserved the incidents and the colour. In Rome he saw Wiseman at the English College; the city, as mother of religion to his native land, laid a spell on him never more to be undone. He felt called to some high mission; and when fever took him at Leonforte in Sicily (where he was wandering alone) he cried out, "I shall not die, I have not sinned against the light." Off Cape Ortegal, 11 December, 1832, he had composed the first of a series of poems, condensed, passionate, and original which prophesied that the Church would yet reign as in her youth. Becalmed in the Straits of Bonifacio, he sought guidance through the tender verses, "Lead, Kindly Light", deservedly treasured by all the English-speaking races. They have been called the marching song of the Tractarian host. But during the earlier stages of that journey it was not clear, even to the leader himself, in what direction they were moving -- away from the Revolution, certainly. Reform was in the air; ten Irish bishoprics had been suppressed; disestablishment might not be far off. There was need of resistance to the enemies without, and of a second, but a Catholic, reformation within. The primitive Church must somehow be restored in England. Others met in committee and sent up an address to Canterbury; Newman began the "Tracts for the Times", as he tells us with a smile, "out of his own head." To him Achilles always seemed more than the host of the Achans. He took his motto from the Iliad: "They shall know the difference now." Achilles went down into battle, fought for eight years, won victory upon victory, but was defeated by his own weapons when "Tract 90" appeared, and retired to his tent at Littlemore, a broken champion. Nevertheless, he had done a lasting work, greater than Laud's and likely to overthrow Cranmer's in the end. He had resuscitated the Fathers, brought into relief the sacramental system, paved the way for an astonishing revival of long-forgotten ritual, and given the clergy a hold upon thousands at the moment when Erastian principles were on the eve of triumph. "It was soon after 1830", says Pattison grimly, "that the Tracts desolated Oxford life." Newman's position was designated the Via Media. The English Church, he maintained, lay at an equal distance from Rome and Geneva. It was Catholic in origin and doctrine; it anathematized as heresies the peculiar tenets whether of Calvin or Luther; it could not but protest against "Roman corruptions", which were excrescences on primitive truth. Hence England stood by the Fathers, whose teaching the Prayer Book handed down; it appealed to antiquity, and its norm was the undivided Church. "Charles", said Newman, "is the king, Laud the prelate, Oxford the sacred city, of this principle." Patristic study became the order of the day. Newman's first volume, "The Arians of the Fourth Century", is an undigested, but valuable and characteristic, treatise, wholly Alexandrian in tone, dealing with creeds and sects on the lines of the "Economy." As a history it fails; the manner is confused, the style a contrast to his later intensity and directness of expression. But as a thinker Newman never travelled much beyond the "Arians" (published 1833). It implies a mystic philosophy controlled by Christian dogma, as the Church expounds it. In the "Apologia" we find this key to his mental development dropped by Newman, not undesignedly. He says,


I understood . . . that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable, Scripture was an allegory; pagan literature, philosophy, and mythology, properly understood, were but a preparation for the Gospel. The Greek poets and sages were in a sense prophets.
There had been a "dispensation" of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. Both had outwardly come to nought; from and through each had the evangelical doctrine been made manifest. Thus room was granted for the anticipation of deeper disclosures, of truths still under the veil of the letter. Holy Church "will remain after all but a symbol of those heavenly facts which fill eternity. Her mysteries are but the expression in human language of truths to which the human mind is unequal" ("Apol." ed. 1895, p. 27). Such was the teaching that "came like music" to his inward ear, from Athens and Alexandria. Newman's life was devoted, first, to applying this magnificent scheme to the Church of England; and then, when it would not suit those insular dimensions, to the Church of the centre, to Rome. But its wide implications even this far-glancing vision did not take in. However, it substituted a dynamic and progressive principle in Christianity for one merely static. But the Anglican position was supposed to rely on Vincent of Lérins's Quod ubique, admitting of no real developments; its divines urged against Boussuet the "variations" of Catholicism. From 1833 to 1839 the Tractarian leader held this line of defence without a misgiving. Suddenly it gave way, and the Via Media disappeared.

Meanwhile, Oxford was shaken like Medicean Florence by a new Savonarola, who made disciples on every hand; who stirred up sleepy Conservatives when Hampden, a commonplace don, subjected Christian verities to the dissolving influence of Nominalism; and who multiplied books and lectures dealing with all religious parties at once. "The Prophetic Office" was a formal apology of the Laudian type; the obscure, but often beautiful "Treatise on Justification" made an effort "to show that there is little difference but what is verbal in the various views, found whether among Catholic or Protestant divines" on this subject. Döllinger called it "the greatest masterpiece in theology that England had produced in a hundred years", and it contains the true answer to Puritanism. The "University Sermons", profound as their theme, aimed at determining the powers and limits of reason, the methods of revelation, the possibilities of a real theology. Newman wrote so much that his hand almost failed him. Among a crowd of admirers only one perhaps, Hurrell Froude, could meet him in thought on fairly equal terms, and Froude passed away at Dartington in 1836. The pioneer went his road alone. He made a bad party-leader, being liable to sudden gusts and personal resolutions which ended in catastrophe. But from 1839, when he reigned at Oxford without a rival, he was already faltering. In his own language, he had seen a ghost -- the shadow of Rome overclouding his Anglican compromise.

Two names are associated with a change so momentous -- Wiseman and Ward. The "Apologia" does full justice to Wiseman; it scarcely mentions Ward (see OXFORD MOVEMENT). Those who were looking on might have predicted a collision between the Tractarians and Protestant England, which had forgotten the Caroline divines. This came about on occasion of "Tract 90" -- in itself the least interesting of all Newman's publications. The tract was intended to keep stragglers from Rome by distinguishing the corruptions against which the Thirty-Nine Articles were directed, from the doctrines of Trent which they did not assail. A furious and universal agitation broke out in consequence (Feb., 1841), Newman was denounced as a traitor, a Guy Fawkes at Oxford; the University intervened with academic maladroitness and called the tract "an evasion." Dr. Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, mildly censured it, but required that the tracts should cease. For three years condemnations from the bench of bishops were scattered broadcast. To a mind constituted like Newman's, imbued with Ignatian ideas of episcopacy, and unwilling to perceive that they did not avail in the English Establishment, this was an ex cathedra judgment against him. He stopped the tracts, resigned his editorship of "The British Critic", by and by gave up St. Mary's, and retired at Littlemore into lay communion. Nothing is clearer than that, if he had held on quietly, he would have won the day. "Tract 90" does not go so far as many Anglican attempts at reconciliation have gone since. The bishops did not dream of coercing him into submission. But he had lost faith in himself. Reading church history he saw that the Via Media was no new thing. It had been the refuge of the Semiarians, without whom Arianism could never have flourished. It made the fortune of the Monophysites, thanks to whom the Church of Alexandria had sunk into heresy and fallen a prey to Mohammed's legions. The analogy which Newman had observed with dismay was enforced from another side by Wiseman, writing on the Donatists in "The Dublin Review." Wiseman quoted St. Augustine, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum", which may be interpreted "Catholic consent is the judge of controversy." Not antiquity studied in books, not the bare succession of bishops, but the living Church now broke upon him as alone peremptory and infallible. It ever had been so; it must be so still. Nicæa, Ephesus, and Chalcedon thus bore witness to Rome. Add to this the grotesque affair of the Jerusalem bishopric, the fruit of an alliance with Lutheran Prussia, and the Anglican theory was disproved by facts.

From 1841 Newman was on his death-bed as regarded the Anglican Church. He and some friends lived together at Littlemore in monastic seclusion, under a hard rule which did not improve his delicate health. In February, 1843, he retracted in a local newspaper his severe language towards Rome; in September he resigned his living. With immense labour he composed the "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine", in which the apparent variations of dogma, formerly objected by him against the Catholic Church, were explained on a theory of evolution, curiously anticipating on certain points the great work of Darwin. It has many most original passages, but remains a fragment. On 9 October, 1845, during a period of excited action at Oxford, Newman was received into the Church by Father Dominic, an Italian Passionist, three days after Renan had broken with Saint-Sulpice and Catholicism. The event, although long in prospect, irritated and distressed his countrymen, who did not forgive it until many years had gone by. Its importance was felt; its causes were not known. Hence an estrangement which only the exquisite candour of Newman's self-delineation in the "Apologia" could entirely heal.

His conversion divides a life of almost ninety years into equal parts -- the first more dramatic and its perspective ascertained; the second as yet imperfectly told, but spent for a quarter of a century sub luce maligna, under suspicion from one side or another, his plans thwarted, his motives misconstrued. Called by Wiseman to Oscott, near Birmingham, in 1846, he proceeded in October to Rome, and was there ordained by Cardinal Fransoni. The pope approved of his scheme for establishing in England the Oratory of St. Philip Neri; in 1847 he came back, and, besides setting up the London house, took mission work in Birmingham. Thence he moved out to Edgbaston, where the community still resides. A large school was added in 1859. The spacious Renaissance church, consecrated in 1909, is a memorial of the forty years during which Newman made his home in that place. After his "Sermons to Mixed Congregations", which exceed in vigour and irony all other published by him, the Oratorian recluse did not strive to gain a footing in the capital of the Midlands. He always felt "paucorum hominum sum"; his charm was not for the multitude. As a Catholic he began enthusiastically. His "Lectures on Anglican Difficulties" were heard in London by large audiences; "Loss and Gain", though not much of a story, abounds in happy strokes and personal touches; "Callista" recalls his voyage in the Mediterranean by many delightful pages; the sermon at the Synod of Oscott entitled "The Second Spring" has a rare an delicate beauty. It is said that Macaulay knew it by heart. "When Newman made up his mind to join the Church of Rome", observes R. H. Hutton, "his genius bloomed out with a force and freedom such as it never displayed in the Anglican communion." And again, "In irony, in humour, in eloquence, in imaginative force, the writings of the later and, as we may call it, emancipated portion of his career far surpass the writings of his theological apprenticeship." But English Catholic literature also gained a persuasive voice and a classic dignity of which hitherto there had been no example.

His own secession, preceded by that of Ward (amid conflicts of the angriest kind at Oxford), and followed by many others, had alarmed Englishmen. In 1850 came the "Papal Aggression", by which the country was divided into Catholic sees, and a Roman cardinal announced from the Flaminian Gate his commission to "govern" Westminster. The nation went mad with excitement. Newman delivered in the Corn Exchange, Birmingham, his Lectures on the Position of Catholics (he was seldom felicitous in titles of books), and, to George Eliot's amazement, they revealed him as a master of humorous, almost too lively sketches, witty and scornful of the great Protestant tradition. An apostate Italian priest, Achilli, was haranguing against the Church. Prompted by Wiseman, the Oratorian gave particulars of this man's infamous career, and Achilli brought a charge of libel. Newman, at enormous expense, collected evidence which fully justified the accusations he had made. But a no-popery jury convicted him. He was fined 100 pounds; on appeal, the verdict was quashed; and "The Times" admitted that a miscarriage of justice had taken place when Newman was declared guilty. Catholics all the world over came to his relief. His thanks are on record in the dedication of his Dublin "Lectures." But he always remembered that to Wiseman's haste and carelessness he owed this trial.

There was much more trouble awaiting him. The years from 1851 to 1870 brought disaster to a series of noble projects in which he aimed at serving religion and culture. In Ireland the bishops had been compelled, after rejecting the "Godless" colleges in 1847, to undertake a university of their own. Neither men nor ideas were forthcoming; the State would not sanction degrees conferred by a private body; nevertheless, an attempt could be made; and Newman was appointed rector, November, 1851. Three years passed as in a dream; in 1854 he took the oaths. But he had, in 1852, addressed Ireland on the "Idea of a University" with such a largeness and liberality of view as Oxford, if we may believe Pattison, had never taught him. The "Lectures" end abruptly; they gave him less satisfaction than any other of his works; yet, in conjunction with his brilliant short papers in the "University Magazine", and academic dissertations to the various "Schools", they exhibit a range of thought, an urbanity of style, and a pregnant wit, such as no living professor could have rivalled. They are the best defence of Catholic educational theories in any language; a critic perhaps would describe them as the Via Media between an obscurantism which tramples on the rights of knowledge and Free-Thought which will not hear of the rights of revelation. Incidentally, they defended the teaching of the classics against a French Puritan clique led by the Abbé Gaume. This was pretty much all that Newman achieved during the seven years of his "Campaign in Ireland." Only a few native or English students attended the house in St. Stephen's Green. The bishops were divided, and Archbishop MacHale opposed a severe non possumus to the rector's plans. In administration difficulties sprang up; and though Newman won the friendship of Archbishop Cullen and Bishop Moriarty, he was not always treated with due regard. The status of titular bishop had been promised him; for reasons which he never learnt, the promise fell through. His feeling towards Ireland was warm and generous; but in Nov., 1858, he retired from the rectorship. Its labours and anxieties had told upon him. Another large enterprise, to which Cardinal Wiseman invited him only to balk his efforts, was likewise a failure -- the revision of the English Catholic Bible. Newman had selected a company of revisors and had begun to accumulate materials, but some small publishers' interests were pleaded on the other side, and Wiseman, whose intentions were good, but evanescent, allowed them to wreck this unique opportunity.

During the interval between 1854 and 1860 Newman had passed from the convert's golden fervours into a state which resembled criticism of prevailing methods in church government and education. His friends included some of a type known to history as "Liberal Catholics." Of Montalembert and Lacordaire he wrote in 1864: "In their general line of thought and conduct I enthusiastically concur and consider them to be before their age." He speaks of "the unselfish aims, the thwarted projects, the unrequited toils, the grand and tender resignation of Lacordaire." That moving description might be applied to Newman himself. He was intent on the problems of the time and not alarmed at Darwin's "Origin of Species." He had been made aware by German scholars, like Acton, of the views entertained at Munich; and he was keenly sensitive to the difference between North and South in debatable questions of policy or discipline. He looked beyond the immediate future; in a lecture at Dublin on "A Form of Infidelity of the Day" he seems to have anticipated what is now termed "Modernism", condemning it as the ruin of dogma. It is distressing to imagine what Newman's horror would have been, had his intuition availed to tell him that, in little more than half a century, a "form of infidelity" so much like what he had predicted would claim him as its originator; on the other hand, he would surely have taken comfort, could he also have foreseen that the soundness of his faith was to be so vindicated as it has been by Bishop O'Dwyer, of Limerick, and above all, the vindication so approved and confirmed as it is in Pius X's letter of 10 March, 1908, to that bishop. In another lecture, on "Christianity and Scientific Investigation", he provides for a concordat which would spare the world a second case of Galileo. He held that Christian theology was a deductive science, but physics and the like were inductive; therefore collision between them need not, and in fact did not really occur. He resisted in principle the notion that historical evidence could do away with the necessity of faith as regarded creeds and definitions. He deprecated the intrusions of amateurs into divinity; but he was anxious that laymen should take their part in the movement of intellect. This led him to encourage J. M. Capes in founding the "Rambler", and H. Wilberforce in editing the "Weekly Register." But likewise it brought him face to face with a strong reaction from the earlier liberal policy of Pius IX. This new movement, powerful especially in France, was eagerly taken up by Ward and Manning, who now influenced Wiseman as he sank under a fatal disease. Their quarrel with J.H.N. (as he was familiarly called) did not break out in open war; but much embittered correspondence is left which proves that, while no point of faith divided the parties, their dissensions threw back English Catholic education for thirty years.

These misunderstandings turned on three topics:


the "scientific" history which was cultivated by the "Rambler", with Newman's partial concurrence;
the proposed oratory at Oxford; and
the temporal power, then at the crisis of its fate.
Newman's editorship of the "Rambler", accepted, on request of Wiseman, by way of compromise, lasted only two months (May-July, 1859). His article, "On Consulting the Laity in Matters of Doctrine", was denounced at Rome by Bishop Brown of Newport and Menevia. Leave was given for an Oratorian house at Oxford, provided Newman did not go thither himself, which defeated the whole plan. A sharp review of Manning's "Lectures on the Temporal Power" was attributed to Newman, who neither wrote nor inspired it; and these two illustrious Catholics were never friends again. Newman foresaw the total loss of the temporal power; his fears were justified; but prevision and the politics of the day could not well be united. Of all Christians then living this great genius had the deepest insight into the future; but to his own generation he became as Jeremiah announcing the fall of Jerusalem. Despondency was his prevailing mood when, in January, 1864, from an unexpected quarter, the chance of his life was given him.

Charles Kingsley, a bold, picturesque, but fiercely anti-Catholic writer, dealing, in "Macmillan's Magazine", with J. A. Froude's "History of England," let fall the remark that


Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Newman informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which heaven has given to the Saints wherewith to withstand the brute male force of the wicked world which marries and is given in marriage. Whether his notion be doctrinally correct or not, it is at least historically so.
These assertions had no foundation whatever in fact. Newman demanded proof; a correspondence ensued in which Kingsley referred to one of the Oxford Anglican sermons generally; he withdrew his charge in terms that left its injustice unreproved; and thus he brought on himself, in the pamphlet which his adversary published, one of the most cutting replies, ironical and pitiless, known to literature. He returned to the assault. "What then does Dr. Newman mean?" was his question. The answer came in the shape of an "Apologia pro Vita sua", which, while pulverizing enemies of the Kingsley stamp, lifted Newman to a height above all his detractors, and added a unique specimen of religious autobiography to our language. Issued in seven parts between 21 April and 2 June, 1864, the original work was a marvel of swift and cogent writing. Materials in expectation of some such opportunity had been collecting since 1862. But the duel which led up to an account of Newman's most intimate feelings exhibited sword-play the like of which can be scarcely found outside Pascal's "Provincial Letters" and Lessing's "Anti-Goeze." It annihilated the opponent and his charge. Not that Newman cherished a personal animosity against Kingsley, whom he had never met. His tone was determined by a sense of what he owed to his own honour and the Catholic priesthood. "Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into space", were his parting words to a man whose real gifts did not serve him in this wild encounter. Then the old Tractarian hero told the story of his life. He looked upon it with the eye of an artist, with self-knowledge like that of Hamlet, with candour, and pathos, and awe; for he felt a guiding power throughout which had brought him home. The handling was unaffected, the portraits of Oxford celebrities true and yet kind; the drama which ended in his renunciation of place and power at St. Mary's moved on with a tragic interest. His brief prologues are among the jewels of English prose. A word from St. Augustine converted him, and its poignant effects could not be surpassed in the "Confessions" of the saint himself. The soliloquy, as we may term it, which describes Newman's attitude since 1845, presents in a lofty view his apology, which is not a surrender, to those Catholics who mistrusted him. Though he never would discuss the primary problems of Theism ex professo, he has dwelt on the apparent chaos of history, goodness defeated and moral efforts futile, with a piercing eloquence which reminds us of some lament in "schylus." He met Kingsley's accusations of double-dealing proudly and in detail. But by the time he reached them, Englishmen -- who had read the successive chapters with breathless admiration -- were completely brought round. No finer triumph of talent in the service of conscience has been put on record. From that day the Catholic religion may date its reentrance into the national literature. Instead of arid polemics and technical arguments, a living soul had revealed its journey towards the old faith wherein lay the charm that drew it on. Reality became more fascinating that romance; the problem which staggered Protestants and modern minds -- how to reconcile individual genius with tradition, private judgment with authority -- was resolved in Newman's great example.

Amid acclamations from Catholics, echoing the "aves vehement" of the world outside, he turned to the philosophy which would justify his action. He began the "Grammar of Assent." Still, Manning, now archbishop, Talbot, chamberlain of Pius IX, Ward, editor of the "Dublin Review", were not to be pacified. Manning thought he was transplanting the "Oxford tone into the Church"; Talbot described him as "the most dangerous man in England"; Ward used even harder terms. In 1867 an attack by a Roman correspondent on Newman led to a counter-move, when two hundred distinguished laymen told him, "Every blow that touches you inflicts a wound upon the Catholic Church in this country." His discriminating answer on the cultus of Our Lady to Pusey's "Eirenicon" had been taken ill in some quarters. One of his Oratorians, H.I.D. Ryder, was bold enough to cross swords with the editor of the "Dublin", who inflicted on friend and foe views concerning the extent of papal infallibility which the Roman authorities did not sanction; and Newman rejoiced in the assault. In 1870 the "Grammar" was published. But its appearance, coinciding with the Vatican Council, roused less attention than the author's suspected dislike for the aims and conduct of the majority at Rome. Years before he had proclaimed his belief in the infallible pope. His "Cathedra Sempiterna" rivals in fervour and excels in genuine rhetoric the passage with which de Maistre concluded his "Du Pape", which became a text for "ultramontane" apologetics. Yet he shrank from the perils which hung over men less stable than himself, should the definition be carried. He would have healed the breach between Rome and Munich. Under these impressions he sent to his bishop, W.B. Ullathorne, a confidential letter in which he branded, not the Fathers of the Council, but the journalists and other partisans outside who were abounding in violent language, as "an insolent and aggressive faction." The letter was surreptitiously made public; a heated controversy ensued; but Newman took no further part in the conciliar proceedings. Of course he accepted the dogmatic definitions; and in 1874 he defended the Church against Gladstone's charge that "Vaticanism" was equivalent to the latest fashions in religion (see his "Letter to the Duke of Norfolk").

Newman's demeanour towards authority was ever one of submission; but, as he wrote to Phillips de Lisle in 1848, "it is no new thing with me to feel little sympathy with parties, or extreme opinions of any kind." In recommending the Creed he would employ "a wise and gentle minimism", not extenuating what was true but setting down nought in malice. The "Grammar of Assent" illustrates and defends this method, in which human nature is not left out of account. It is curiously Baconian, for it eschews abstractions and metaphysics, being directed to the problem of concrete affirmation, its motives in fact, and its relation to the personality of the individual. This hitherto unexplored province of apologetics lay dark, while the objective reasons for assent had engrossed attention; we might term it the casuistry of belief. Newman brought to the solution a profound acquaintance with the human heart, which was his own; a resolve to stand by experience; and a subtilty of expression corresponding to his fine analysis. He believed in "implicit" logic, varied and converging proofs, indirect demonstration (ex impossibili or ex absurdo); assent, in short, in not a mechanical echo of the syllogism but a vital act, distinct and determined. The will, sacrificed in many schools to formal intellect, recovers its power; genius and common sense are justified. Not that pure logic loses its rights, or truth is merely "that which each man troweth"; but the moral being furnishes an indispensable premise to arguments bearing on life, and all that is meant by a "pious disposition" towards faith is marvellously drawn out. As a sequel and crown to the "Development" this often touching volume (which reminds us of Pascal) completed the author's philosophy. Some portions of it he is said to have written ten times, the last chapter many times more. Yet that chapter is already in part antiquated. The general description,however, of concrete assent appears likely to survive all objections. How far it bears on Kant's "Practical Reason" or the philosophy of the will as developed by Schopenhauer, has yet to be considered. But we must not torture it into the "pragmatism" of a later day. As Newman held by dogma in revelation, so he would never have denied that the mind enjoys a vision of truth founded on reality. He was a mystic, not a sceptic. To him the reason by which men guided themselves was "implicit" rather than "explicit", but reason nevertheless. Abstractions do not exist; but the world is a fact; our own personality cannot be called in question; the will is a true cause; and God reveals Himself in conscience. Apologetics, to be persuasive, should address the individual; for real assents, however multiplied, are each single and sui generis. Even a universal creed becomes in this way a private acquisition. As the "Development" affords a counterpart to Boussuet's "Variations", so the "Grammar" may be said to have reduced the "personal equation" in controversy to a working hypothesis, whereas in Protestant hands it had served the purposes of anarchy.

For twenty years Newman lay under imputations at Rome, which misconstrued his teaching and his character. This, which has been called the ostracism of a saintly genius, undoubtedly was due to his former friends, Ward and Manning. In February, 1878, Pius IX died; and, by a strange conjuncture, in that same month Newman returned to Oxford as Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, "dear to him from undergraduate days." The event provoked Catholics to emulation. Moreover, the new pope, Leo XIII, had also lived in exile from the Curia since 1846, and the Virgilian sentiment, "Haud ignara mali", would come home to him. The Duke of Norfolk and other English peers approached Cardinal Manning, who submitted their strong representation to the Holy See. Pope Leo, it is alleged, was already considering how he might distinguish the aged Oratorian. He intimated, accordingly, in February, 1879, his intention of bestowing on Newman the cardinal's hat. The message affected him to tears, and he exclaimed that the cloud was lifted from him forever. By singular ill-fortune, Manning understood certain delicate phrases in Newman's reply as declining the purple; he allowed that statement to appear in "The Times", much to everyone's confusion. However, the end was come. After a hazardous journey, and in broken health, Newman arrived in Rome. He was created Cardinal-Deacon of the Title of St. George, on 12 May, 1879. His biglietto speech, equal to the occasion in grace and wisdom, declared that he had been the life-long enemy of Liberalism, or "the doctrine that there is no truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another", and that Christianity is "but a sentiment and a taste, not an objective fact, not miraculous."

Hitherto, in modern times, no simple priest, without duties in the Roman Curia, had been raised to the Sacred College. Newman's elevation, hailed by the English nation and by Catholics everywhere with unexampled enthusiasm, was rightly compared to that of Bessarion after the Council of Florence. It broke down the wall of partition between Rome and England. To the many addresses which poured in upon him the cardinal replied with such point and felicity as often made his words gems of literature. He had revised all his writings, the last of which dealt somewhat tentatively with Scripture problems. Now his hand would serve him no more, but his mind kept its clearness always. In "The Dream of Gerontius" (1865), which had been nearly a lost masterpiece, he anticipated his dying hours, threw into concentrated, almost Dantean, verse and imagery his own beliefs as suggested by the Offices of Requiem, and looked forward to his final pilgrimage, "alone with the Alone." Death came with little suffering, on 11 August, 1890. His funeral was a great public event. He lies in the same grave with Ambrose St. John, whom he called his "life under God for thirty-two years." His device as cardinal, taken from St. Francis de Sales, was Cor ad cor loquitor (Heart speaketh to heart); it reveals the secret of his eloquence, unaffected, graceful, tender, and penetrating. On his epitaph we read: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem (From shadows and symbols goes the truth); it is the doctrine of the Economy, which goes back to Plato's "Republic" (bk. VII) and which passed thence by way of Christian Alexandria into the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, the poetry of the Florentine, and the schools of Oxford. John Henry Newman thus continues in modern literature the Catholic tradition of East and West, sealing it with a martyr's faith and suffering, steadfast in loyalty to the truth, while discerning with a prophet's vision the task of the future.

As a writer of English prose Newman stands for the perfect embodiment of Oxford, deriving from Cicero the lucid and leisurely art of exposition, from the Greek tragedians a thoughtful refinement, from the Fathers a preference for personal above scientific teaching, from Shakespeare, Hooker, and that older school the use of idiom at its best. He refused to acquire German; he was unacquainted with Goethe as with Hegel; he took some principles from Coleridge, perhaps indirectly; and, on the whole, he never went beyond Aristotle in his general views of education. From the Puritan narrowness of his first twenty years he was delivered when he came to know the Church as essential to Christianity. Then he enlarged that conception until it became Catholic and Roman, an historical idea realized. He made no attempt, however, to widen the Oxford basis of learning, dated 1830, which remained his position, despite continual reading and study. The Scholastic theology, except on its Alexandrian side, he left untouched; there is none of it in his "Lectures", none in the "Grammar of Assent." He wrote forcibly against the shallow enlightenment of Brougham; he printed no word concerning Darwin, or Huxley, or even Colenso. He lamented the fall of Döllinger; but he could not acquiesce in the German idea by which, as it was in fact applied, the private judgment of historians overruled the Church's dogmas. Conscience to him was the inward revelation of God, Catholicism the outward and objective. This twofold force he opposed to the agnostic, the rationalist, the mere worldling. But he seems to have thought men premature who undertook a positive reconciliation between faith and science, or who attempted by a vaster synthesis to heal the modern conflicts with Rome. He left that duty to a later generation; and, though by the principle of development and the philosophy of concrete assent providing room for it, he did not contribute towards its fulfillment in detail. He will perhaps be known hereafter as the Catholic Bishop Butler, who extended the "Analogy" drawn from experience to the historical Church, proving it thus to be in agreement with the nature of things, however greatly transcending the visible scheme by its message, institutions and purpose, which are alike supernatural.

Publication information
Written by William Barry. Transcribed by Ann Waterman.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X. Published 1911. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York