Cardinal Newman: Christ hidden and revealed in his disciples

       The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” John 1:5               

 I say that Christ, the sinless Son of God, might be living now in the world as our next door neighbor, and perhaps we not find it out…

True Christians look just the same to the world as the great mass of what are called respectable people. But in their hearts they are very different. They make no great show. They go on in the same quiet ordinary way as the others, but they are really training to be saints in Heaven. They do all they can to change themselves, to become like God, to obey God, to discipline themselves, to renounce the world; but they do it in secret, both because God tells them to do so, and because they do not like it to be known. Moreover, there are a number of others between these two with more or less worldliness and more or less faith. Yet they all look about the same to common eyes, because true religion is a hidden thing in the heart: though it cannot exist without deeds, yet these for the most part are secret deeds, secret charities, secret prayers, secret self denials, secret struggles, secret victories…

 And yet, though we have no right to judge others, but must leave this to God, it is very certain that a really holy person, a true saint, though he looks like other people, still has a sort of secret power in him to attract others to himself who are like-minded. To influence all who have anything in them like him.  And thus it often becomes the test; whether we are like minded with the saints of God, whether they have an influence over us. And though we seldom have means of knowing at the time who are God’s own saints, yet when all is over we have; and then on looking back at the past, perhaps after they are dead and gone, if we knew them we may ask ourselves what power they had over us, whether they attracted us, influenced us, humbled us, whether they made our hearts burn within us. And alas! too often we shall find that we were close to them, had means of knowing them and knew them not, and that is a heavy condemnation upon us, indeed…

The holier a man is the less he is understood by the men of the world. All who have a spark of living faith will understand him in a measure.  The holier he is they will for the most part be attracted the more; but those who serve the world will be blind to him, scorn and dislike him, the holier he is….

Parochial and Plain Sermons, pp. 880-1

Cardinal Newman: Trust in God

     1. "God was all complete, all blest in himself, but it was his will to create a world for his glory. He is almighty. He might have done everything for himself. But it has been his will to bring about his purposes through the beings he created. We are all created for his glory. We are created to do his will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created. I have a place in God's councils, in God's world which no one else has. And whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by men, God knows me and calls me by my name.
     2. God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to anyone else. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life. But I will be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for his purposes. As necessary in my place, as an archangel is in his. If indeed I fail, he can raise another, as he could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work. I am a link in a chain,  a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good. I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth, in my own place, while not even intending it, if only I keep his commandments and serve him in my calling. 
     3. Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him. In perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. My sickness, my perplexity or sorrow may be the necessary causes of some great end which is quite beyond us. But he does nothing in  vain. He may prolong my life, he may shorten it. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friends, throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me, and still He knows what He is about.
       O Adonai, O Ruler of  Israel, O Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock; O Emmanuel, O Eternal Wisdom, I give myself to thee. I trust thee entirely. Thou are wiser than I, more loving to me than I am to myself. Deign to fulfill thy high purposes in me. Work in and through me. I am born to serve thee, to be thine to thy instrument. Let me be thy blind instrument.  I ask not to see, I ask not to know,  I ask only to be used."


The Works of Cardinal Newman, Meditations and Devotions, pp. 300 -302

Cardinal Newman: On Trust and Abandonment

I believe, O my Savior, that you know just what is best for me. I believe you love me better than I love myself. That you are all wise in your providence, and all powerful in your protection. I am as ignorant as Peter was as to what is to happen to me in time to come. But I resign myself entirely to my ignorance and thank you with all my heart that you have taken me out of my own keeping. And instead of putting such a serious charge upon me, you have asked me to put myself into your hands. I ask nothing better than this, to be in your care and not in my own.

Cardinal Newman on "Providence and the Cross"

"Lord, we know not what is good for us

Or what is bad.

We can't foretell the future. Nor do we know when you come to visit us

 In what form you will come. 

Therefore we must leave it all to you. 

Do you, in your good pleasure, come to us, 

And be with us.

 Let us ever look upon you, 

And do you look upon us, and  

Give us the grace of your bitter cross and passion, 

And console us in your own way 

And at your own time."

I found this quotation among several others I had copied out from some edition of Cardinal Newman's works years ago. The note I had penciled to myself on the side said: Remember to pray this as a way to heal your egocentricity. It was good advice back then. It is good advice now.