Newman Documentary
Newman Documentary, Day 6: Birmingham
May 16, 2025
Lead Kindly Light, Lead Thou me on!
Day 6: Birmingham
May 15, 2025
Dear Friends,
Today was a memorable day, filming in Birmingham, where St. John Henry Newman lived the second part of his life, where he died, where he was buried.
What were his days there like? Where did he pray and say Mass? What was his writing like, and how was his library? These are some of the questions that Gustavo and his team asked today.
At the Birmingham Oratory, they visited Newman’s room, full of books and a small desk. Here Newman spent long hours thinking and writing. Everything is carefully kept as it was when he was alive.
Next to his room is a small private chapel, the walls covered with photos of loved ones for whom he prayed. There Newman offered the great sacrifice each day. There he spoke to God and God spoke to him. One of the Oratorian priests Fr. Antonin spoke with us and showed us these beautiful spaces.
The team visited the Oratory library, put together by Newman—an impressive private collection, which for Newman’s time was even more astonishing. There, Dr. Emma Mason, professor of English literature at Warwick University, talked to us a little about Newman’s novels and read some of his poems to us.
We visited the beautiful Oratory church, the Church of the Immaculate Conception – Newman had a tender love for the Mother of God. It is located at the Birmingham Oratory, officially known as the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Birmingham. The foundation stone was laid in 1879, and the church was completed and opened in 1903. Its architect was Edward Doran Webb. The church houses in an adjacent space a sober yet elegant chapel with a painting of Newman and an urn with his remains. There is also a small museum with memorabilia.
Daniel Joyce, the archivist at the Oratory, kindly accompanied us during our visit and then rode with us to Rednal, the countryside retreat home of the Oratorians, thirty minutes away. A large house, hidden in the woods, there Newman and his brothers had a quiet place for rest.
At Rednal, Fr. Peter Conley, a priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, read for us a few passages from Newman. He and Emma walked with us to the small cemetery next to the house, where Newman was once buried. He had, like the other members of the community, a simple tombstone. His epitaph reads ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem (out of the shadows into the truth)—words that capture his journey of faith, his life-long passion for truth, and his desire to see God hidden behind the veil of our material world.
Today we leaped forward in our documentary to the end of Newman’s life. Tomorrow, we will return to various earlier periods: his trips to Ireland, his visits to Malta and Sicily, and his stay in Rome. First, we will fly to Dublin to learn about the Catholic University of Ireland, which he founded.
Thank you for joining us in this journey with St. John Henry Newman. We hope you are experiencing his faith, love for others, joys, and sufferings. Please continue to pray for the film team, who has done an excellent job, and for the guests who are guiding us—so that many others will come to know Our Lord Jesus Christ and our Catholic faith through this documentary we are filming.
Here is a prayer that you can say with us:
O God, who bestowed on your Priest Saint John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church; graciously grant that, through his intercession and example, we may be led out of shadows and images into the fullness of your truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
(Memorial Mass of St. John Henry Newman)
