The following summary of Cardinal Newman's homily entitled, 'Christian Sympathy," was presented to the seminarians of the Good Shepherd by the Rector to celebrate the Beatification of Cardinal Newman, which took place in Birmingham, UK, on September 19, 2010.

Christian Sympathy
A Summary of Cardinal Newman’s Homily

This homily is a profound reflection on the sympathy that Christ has for us as our God and as the true ‘Adam.’ In addition, the Christian, because he is rooted in Christ, is called to be sympathetic with his brothers and sisters. Thus Newman reflects, in a most novel and profound way, on the nature of Christ and the nature of the Church.

The Incarnation and Redemption: traditional, yet fresh insights

Newman begins his homily with the observation that we are one nature with each other because we are ‘sons of Adam.’ In addition, we are one nature with each other because we are ‘sons of the Father’ – we share the life of Christ. Thus there are two ontological realities that bind us together as human beings.

He reflects on the incarnation and redemption in a traditional and yet novel way.

Christ then took our nature, when he would redeem it; He redeemed it by making it suffer in His own Person; He purified it, by making it pure in His own Person. He sanctified it in Himself, made it righteous, made it acceptable to God, submitted it to an expiatory passion, and then He imparted it to us.

This is traditional, but then he has these fresh insights.

He took [our nature], consecrated it, broke it, and said, ‘Take, and divide it among yourselves.

This has obvious Eucharistic overtones. He then adds these marvellous thoughts.

And moreover, He raised the condition of human nature, by submitting it to trial and temptation; that what it failed to do in Adam, it might be able to do in Him.

Newman explains this further when he says that Christ took on Himself

the thoughts, affections, and infirmities of man, thereby, through the fullness of His Divine Nature, to raise those thoughts and affections, and destroy those infirmities, that so, by God becoming man, men, through brotherhood with Him, might in the end become as gods.

The last line is reminiscent of early patristic theology, to be sure, but the description of how man is raised through the temptations of Christ is surely innovative, as is the emphasis upon the elevation of human thought and affections. Christ takes our human nature, not just intellect and will, but emotions and passions as well, and elevates them into the divine sphere.

Christ’s sympathetic state and sympathetic movement

As yet the word sympathy has not yet been used, but surely it has been implied. From the above reflections it is clear that Newman understands Christ’s incarnation and redemption in terms of sympathy. The incarnation is that “sympathetic state,” whilst the redemption is clearly that “sympathetic movement” that Christ instigates and carries out within the human person. In the fifth paragraph Newman introduces the term explicitly.

There is not a feeling, not a passion, not a wish, not an infirmity, which we have, which did not belong to that manhood which He assumed, except such as is of the nature of sin. There was not a trial or temptation which befalls us, but was, in kind at least, presented before Him, except that He had nothing within Him, sympathizing with that which came to Him from without.

 

So, Christ can be tempted as we are, but he has no inclination to sin, or as Newman puts it, Jesus has no sympathy for sin. This is an excellent way of explaining, it seems to me, the fact that Christ is not subject to concupiscence as we are. Christ can surely be tempted, but he is not inclined to sin as we are – has no sympathy with sin as we have.

Christian sympathy – sympathy with one another

Now to the heart of the homily. Newman wants to say that because Christ has come in the flesh we have a far greater sympathy for each other (in the Church) then we would ever possibly imagine. We have the great comfort, Newman says, of contemplating Christ and this

binds us together by a sympathy  with one another, as much greater than that of mere nature, as Christ is greater than Adam. ... All those common feelings, which we have by birth, are far more intimately common to us, now that we have obtained the second birth. Our hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains, have been moulded upon one model, have wrought into one image, blended and combined unto ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’

In other words, there is both human and divine sympathy and we possess both forms through our human nature being united to Christ. Newman adds these striking thoughts. “The first converts” he says, show us what happens when Christ enters our life. They “had all things in common,” they believed and “were one heart and of one souls,” they were “one body, and one Spirit,” had “one hope, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.”

Yes, and one thing needful; one narrow way; one business on earth; one and the same enemy; the same dangers; the same temptations; the same afflictions; the same course of life; the same death; the same resurrection; the same judgment. All these things being the same, and the new nature being the same and from the Same, no wonder that Christians can sympathise with each other, even as by the power of Christ sympathising in and with each of them.

However, since Christ is without sin and has not experienced sin, he can sympathise with the sinner, but not with sin as such or the experience of sin. That is, Christ does not experience sin as we do and thus does not experience the shame after sin as we do. In other words, the “head” (Christ) is not able to sympathise with the “body” (Church) when it comes to the experience of sin. However, the members of the “body” are able to sympathise with other members of the “body” when it comes to this existential experience of sin.

[T]hey sympathise together in those respects too, in which Christ has not, could not have, gone before them; I mean in their common sins.

So whilst Christ cannot sympathise with sin – he never experienced it – Christians can, one with another. This is true because of their united human nature and also because Christ dwells within them – the power and presence of Christ enables and enhances the experience sympathy. Certainly, therefore, a Christian can have sympathy for his sinful brothers and sisters.

Newman then offers his own sympathetic view of humanity, which surely resonates with all of us.

We sin, almost spontaneously, in spite of His grace. I do not mean, God forbid, that His grace is not sufficient to subdue all sin in us; or that, as we come more and more under its influence, we are not less and less exposed to voluntary sin; but that so it is, our evil nature remains in us in spite of that new nature which the touch of Christ communicates to us.

His point? Christ is strong, but so is temptation and sin. Perhaps the old adage applies here to Newman’s thought: “God forgives, but nature doesn’t.” It is the ‘old man against the ‘new man.’

Newman’s two bold claims
After making some observations about the differences between one Christian and another he returns to the theme of sympathy between Christians. Here he makes two claims – both bold and insightful. The first claim is that many Christians

think themselves isolated in the world; they think no one ever felt as they feel.

Because of this, the second claim.

They do not dare to expose their feelings, lest they should find that no one understands them. And thus they suffer to wither and decay what was destined in God’s purpose to adorn the Church’s paradise with beauty and sweetness.

Thus: Claim 1: Christians don’t share their real selves with other Christians because they think/feel that no one is going through the same experience.

Thus: Claim 2: Because they don’t share their real selves with others, they do not reach maturity in Christ.

Why don’t Christians think others feel as they feel? Newman says a large part of the problem is public opinion. People go with what the world thinks and says.

It very frequently happens that ten thousand people all say what not any one of them feels, but each says it because everyone else says it, and each fears not to say it lest he should incur the censure of all the rest.

But we all are alike. We should share our burdens. Newman insists.

But, I repeat, we are much more like each other, even in our sins, than we fancy. I do not of course mean to say, that we are one and all at the same point in our Christian course, or have one and all had the same religious history in times past; but that, even taking a man who has never fallen from grace, and one who has fallen most grievously and repented, even they will be found to be very much more like each other in their view of themselves, in their temptations, and feelings upon those temptations, than they might fancy beforehand.

Returning to claim 2, Newman says.

Perhaps the reason why the standard of holiness among us is so low, why our attainments are so poor, our view of the truth so dim, our belief so unreal, our general notions so artificial and external is this, that we dare not trust each other with the secrets of our hearts. We have the same secret, and we keep it to ourselves, and we fear that, as a cause of estrangement, which really would be a bond of union. We do not probe the wounds of our nature thoroughly; we do not lay the foundation of our religious profession in the ground of our inner man; we make clean the outside of things; we are amiable and friendly to each other in words and deeds, but our love is not enlarged, our bowels of affection are straitened, and we fear to let the intercourse begin at the root; and, in consequence, our religion, viewed as a social system, is hollow. The presence of Christ is not in it.

Newman concludes with the chilling observation: Better to reveal to one another now, in this ‘present age,’ our weaknesses and sins than to wait for the ‘day of judgment.’ There is some shame in revealing ourselves, to be sure, but there is also comfort and soothing relief. We have much to lose by failing to reveal our ‘secrets.’

Fr, Percy
12th September 2010