John Henry Newman

Reflections on Saint John Henry Newman’s Lenten Sermon

/ chicoinematt

Sermons

According to the English Catholic priest-cardinal John Henry Newman, “Growth is the only evidence of life.” Life is then most apparent in the springtime with the bursting and budding of flowers, trees, and whistling of birds. Winter precedes this era of new life. Is it not interesting that within nature newness of life springs forth from the cold, dark, dreariness of the death of winter?

Currently, we live in a time of transition—March, the chimeric month whereby it begins calmly like a lamb and ends ferociously like a lion or vice versa!

A Transitional Season

The Holy Spirit guided the Early Church in placing Lent during the lowest point (CLIMATICALLY SPEAKING) of the calendar year.

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Lent is a time of wandering in the hope it leads to the wonderment of Easter Sunday. Saint John Henry Newman began his Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent with this key reminder, “The season of humiliation, which precedes Easter, lasts forty days, in memory of our Lord’s long fast in the wilderness.” When you actually think about it, wintertime can be a source of humiliation as well.

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Tired from the lack of sunlight and seemingly endless shoveling you may oversleep your alarm clock and rush out the door to work. In that panic of celerity, you may have slipped on a patch of ice and fell quickly on your butt— all the while your careful neighbors gaze at you! Well, this actually happened to me, except instead it happened in the busy parking lot of a grocery store! I felt quite foolish and embarrassed. Our 40-day sojourn in the “desert” is a call to unite ourselves in prayer and fasting to Christ’s ultimate humiliation—His violent death on the Cross.

Excerpt from Newman’s Lenten Homily:

For what we know, Christ’s temptation is but the fulness of that which, in its degree, and according to our infirmities and corruptions, takes place in all His servants who seek Him. And if so, this surely was a strong reason for the Church’s associating our season of humiliation with Christ’s sojourn in the wilderness, that we might not be left to our own thoughts, and, as it were, “with the wild beasts.”

Humble Yourself this Lent

Again, the holy priest guides us to focus on Lent as a time to link our personal embarrassment with Jesus’ humble time in the desert. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son Jesus. Jesus endured human things like hunger, thirst, and temptation. Fully human. But fully divine too. Christ never succumbed to the wiles of the Devil. Saint Newman reminds us to humble ourselves before the foot of the Cross.

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May we endure the harsh realities of this wintery world through the refreshing oases of the sacraments this Lenten season. Read the Saint John Henry Newman’s entire sermon here: John Henry Newman’s Lenten Sermon.

Related Links

A pick-me-up from Cardinal Newman to keep up your Lent

Lent 2022: The Complete Guide to the Catholic Season of Lent

40 Facts You Wished Everyone Knew About Lent

Introducing Best Lent Ever: Dynamic Catholic

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Why Catholics Must Have Bible A.D.D Part 7— Joshua and Jesus

/ chicoinematt

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 19, 2017.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church number 128 says, “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.” The New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament and the Old Testament prepares the way for the New Testament. This week’s installment of the Why Catholics Must Have Bible A.D.D. series features a comparison of Joshua and Jesus.

What’s in a Name

According to St. John Chrysostom in his 27th homily on Hebrews, “The name of Joshua [Jesus], was a type. For this reason then, and because of the very name, the creation reverenced him. What then! Was no other person called Jesus? [Yes]; but this man was on this account so called in type; for he used to be called Hoshea. Therefore the name was changed: for it was a prediction and a prophecy. He brought in the people into the promised land, as Jesus [does] into heaven; not the Law; since neither did Moses [bring them in], but remained without. The Law has not power to bring in, but grace”. In fact the Hebrew form of the name Joshua is Yehoshua and is translated as “God saves”—the same meaning as the name of Jesus!

Leading to Promised Land

When I looked up the Old Testament reference to Number 13:16 that St. John is referring to I found something interesting. In the delineation of the spies to be selected to scout the Land of Canaan, the original name of Joshua was Hoshea. Number 13: 16 states, “These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.” Without the Catholic understanding of seeing the Old Testament prefiguring and preparing for the New Testament, I would totally miss this minor and seemingly vapid sentence.

Joshua’s name is changed to show that he is elected to eventually do something the greater than Moses—lead the Israelites into the Promised Land! Along with leading the Israelites to the land of milk and honey, Joshua is another example of God preparing us for the coming of Jesus. Jesus’ leads humanity toward the Promised Land of Heaven with his victory over death.

Saint Cardinal John Henry Newman points out how Joshua is a type of Jesus in his Sermon 12: Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers. Like Joshua saving the harlot Rahab through mercy, Jesus too saves sinners that have faith in him and ask for forgiveness (Sermon 12 no. 2).

Crossing the Jordan

Significance of The Twelve

Twelve is a significant number throughout the Bible— 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles chosen as the first priests by Jesus. In the fourth chapter of the book of Joshua, hearing the word of God, Joshua urges 12 priests to take up a memorial stone from the Jordan River as a memorial of the covenant with God. Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes,

The people of the Hebrews, as we learn, after many sufferings, and after accomplishing their weary course in the desert, did not enter the land of promise until it had first been brought, with Joshua for its guide and the pilot of its life, to the passage of the Jordan. But it is clear that Joshua also, who set up the twelve stones in the stream , was anticipating the coming of the twelve disciples, the ministers of Baptism (On the Baptism of Jesus Christ).

Warriors Against Evil

Along with leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, Joshua led the charge toward conquering the Canaanites people. Joshua was a warrior! Likewise, Jesus battled evil too! Matthew 4 features a spiritual donnybrook with Satan. Jesus conquered sin and death just like Joshua conquered anything the stood in the way for the Israelites homecoming!

Joshua the warrrior

Joshua is one of my favorite Old Testament figures that typologically foreshadow Jesus Christ. Once again God in a surprising turn of events rises up an individual to receive the baton of holiness from arguably the greatest Old Testament prophet ever—Moses! Another thing I learned in my research of Joshua as a type of Christ is the name-change in Numbers 13:16. I am grateful for the wealth of knowledge that I have gleaned from the saints and the catechism on the connections between Joshua and Jesus.

Related Links

Why Catholics Must Have Bible A.D.D. Part 6—How Baptism Destroys Sin

Why Catholics Must Have Bible A.D.D Part 8— Elijah and John the Baptist

Joshua as a Type of Christ

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