Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to issue a decree attributing a miracle to the intercession of the Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman. The move clears the final hurdle in the cause for his canonisation.
Cardinal John Henry Newman is close to becoming Britain’s first new saint since St. John Ogilvie was canonised by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1976.
The last English saints, 40 martyrs of the Reformation, were canonised in 1970.
Cardinal Newman, who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, was born in 1801. He was ordained as a Church of England priest and went on to found the Oxford Movement but converted to Catholicism in 1845.
He was later made a cardinal and, after he died at the age of 89, more than 15,000 people lined the streets for his funeral.
The cause for his sainthood was opened in 1958 and he was declared Venerable by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1991 after his life of ‘heroic virtue’ was recognised.
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Prayer of Cardinal Newman:
RADIATING CHRIST
Dear Jesus, help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being, so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus! Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as You shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus will be all from You, none of it will be ours; it will be You shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us.
Let us preach You without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to You.
Amen.
Flood our souls with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being, so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through us, and be so in us, that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus! Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as You shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light O Jesus will be all from You, none of it will be ours; it will be You shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us.
Let us preach You without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to You.
Amen.
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John Henry Newman:
"It is a rule of divine Providence that we succeed by failure."
"God’s presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over."
"God’s presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over."
"To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant."
"Christianity is faith, faith implies a doctrine, a doctrine propositions, propositions a yes or no, a yes or no difference."
"Christianity is faith, faith implies a doctrine, a doctrine propositions, propositions a yes or no, a yes or no difference."
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