Articles

The Paraclete the Life of the Church

Robert Kirkendall June 20, 2025

In the liturgy for the Feast of Pentecost, our priestly ministers pray in thanksgiving for the bread and wine about to be consecrated:

…bringing your Paschal Mystery to completion, you [God] bestowed the Holy Spirit today on those you made your adopted children by uniting them to your Only Begotten Son. This same Spirit, as the Church came to birth, opened to all peoples the knowledge of God and brought together the many languages of the earth in profession of the one faith.

St. John Henry Newman’s meditation, “The Paraclete, the Life of the Church,” reflects three chief themes summarized in the Eucharistic Preface for Pentecost: the Holy Spirit providentially founded and sustains the Church, the Holy Spirit brings all Christians into unity with each other and with the Father, and the Holy Spirit providentially directs our particular lives and the course of human history.

First, he considers how the Holy Spirit operates in the Church generally. The ”Third Person of the All-Blessed Trinity” established, maintains, and continually fills the Church with His seven-fold gifts, making her “a great light upon a hill” in this “world of sin.” In the Church heaven is brought down “upon earth,” like the great ladder Jacob saw in a dream, “a great company of Angels” traversing it. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church  restores the real and abiding “communion between God above and man below.” The “light of grace” here in this life is thus substantially one with the “light of glory” in the next—the Church of the faithful on earth and the Church of the saints in heaven are the same Church, the same body of Christ, united by the adorable Holy Spirit.

Second, Newman ponders the Holy Spirit’s compassionate mercy in bringing him into the Church, inviting us to ponder the same about ourselves. Newman looks to his moments of waywardness in past years, and adores the Holy Spirit for calling and choosing him despite his sins:

“I had no claim on Thee for so wonderful a favour over anyone else in the whole world. There were many men far better than I by nature, gifted with more pleasing natural gifts, and less stained with sin. Yet Thou, in Thy inscrutable love for me, hast chosen me and brought me into Thy fold… I did nothing towards it—I did everything against it… O my God, that overpowering love took me captive. Was any boyhood so impious as some years of mine! Did I not in fact dare Thee to do Thy worst?… I have not a word to say, but to bow down in awe before the depths of Thy love.”

Third, and finally, Newman praises the Holy Spirit for his redemptive power. The Holy Spirit is unsparing in his grace, and so Newman prays, “…give me this further grace, Lord, to use all this grace well, and to turn it to my salvation.” He asks for a deeper love for the Sacraments, and notes especially the power of the Holy Spirit at work in confession and Holy Communion: “Teach me to value as I ought, to prize as the inestimable pearl, that pardon which again and again Thou givest me, and the great and heavenly gift of the Presence of Him whose Spirit Thou art, upon the Altar.” Our redemption is the work of God, in and through the Church, unto life everlasting: “Without Thee I can do nothing, and Thou art there where Thy Church is and Thy Sacraments. Give me grace to rest in them for ever, till they are lost in the glory of Thy manifestation in the world to come.” The Church brings about mankind’s unity with the Blessed Trinity, as the second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium teaches. Newman’s simple words reflect how this unity is enacted and manifested in the “sacred Liturgy,” as Lumen Gentium says, “wherein the power of the Holy Spirit acts upon us through sacramental signs.” This sacramental unity with God keeps the Church perpetually in the “freshness of youth,” and leads it ultimately to “perfect union with its Spouse” in heaven. 

Newman’s understanding of Church history gave him a rich sense of the Holy Spirit’s life-giving power in the Church as it has navigated the birth, growth and decay of various human civilizations. As G.K. Chesterton says, a dead thing can’t go against a stream—only a living thing can. While nature takes her course, the Holy Spirit brings dead things to life again, in our souls and in society, a theme Newman famously explored in his sermon “The Second Spring” (1852). Likewise, in An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, he remarks upon how the Church possesses a living power to take the best in all human peoples, traditions, philosophies, and civilizations, and sanctifies them with the Holy Spirit’s divine life, “claiming to herself what they [in the world] said rightly, correcting their errors, supplying their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the range and refining the sense of her own teaching.” This is true of human history, and equally, of each individual Christian. The humble stories of our lives, our obedience, discipleship, and Christian growth, are part of a much larger story of redeeming the world.

With renewed fervor, let us adore the Holy Spirit for the powerful work he has done, is doing, and will do in each of us individually, and in the whole Church collectively, to sum up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). With Newman, and by his example, let us more contritely confess our sins and failings, more vigorously adore the mercy, help, and compassion of the Holy Spirit, and thus more profitably enjoy his intimate friendship through our sacramental participation and our growth in virtue, together, as a people He has made one.

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About Cardinal John Henry Newman

National Institute for Newman Studies

Centro Internazionale degli Amici di Newman

The Oratory, Birmingham

Archdiocese of Birmingham, England

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About Cardinal John Henry Newman

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A Guide to John Henry Newman will interest educated readers and professors alike, and serve as a text for college seminars for the purpose of studying Newman.

Review by Catherine Maybanks
(Catholic Herald, April 1, 2023)

Review by Serenheed James
(Antiphon, April 2023)

 This book is being currently considered for reprinting, all enquiries to the Sales Team general@alivepublishing.co.uk
 

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Endorsement by Neyra Blanco (Amazon)
I bought this book for my son and he loved it, he wrote this review and urged my to submitted: “I think this book has a very beautiful message, because it shows how the young Newman was so determined to achieve his dream of becoming a priest, but even after his dream he continued to work in the church with passion until the day he died, it’s so admirable that even Newman so old and so weak still had that urge to continued his work of being a priest. And the book is well written with words not too complicated with very enjoyable texts and well illustrated pictures. I highly recommend this book for a 5th grader.  

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What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education? Why is it so important for the development of a person?

Fr. Juan R. Vélez answers these and more questions you might have about University Education in the 21st century. This book is aimed for parents, prospective University students, and educators. It will help you discern why adding Liberal Arts electives to your education will help it form it better, and help the student learn to reason, and not just learn.

He also explains how many Universities have changed the true meaning of Liberal Arts, and the subjects, and gives advise on how to choose College Campus, Subjects, and Teachers.

A wonderful book that every parent should also read way before your children are College bound. A Liberal Arts education can start earlier in life, even from home.

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Endorsement by Christopher Moellering (Goodreads, September 14, 2019)
In Passion for Truth Fr. Vélez gave us an outstanding biography of Cardinal Newman. In this work, he provides a concise overview of his thought and his devotion. This is a great work for someone who, perhaps hearing of Newman for the first time because of his beatification 13 October, 2019, wants to know more about this English saint.Vélez is a wonderful writer in his own right, and the frequent quotations from Newman round out the work nicely. I especially appreciated the frequent citing of Newman’s Meditations and Devotions, which show a different side of his spirituality than his more well-known works, Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent.

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Review by Gregory J. Sullivan (Amazon, May 25, 2012)

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Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman, endorsement by Illow M. Roque (Amazon, September 3, 2010)
“There is a time to put direct inquiry on hold and give ourselves to prayer and practical duties.” Sound advice from one of the earlier, thought-provoking reminders in this sparkling gem of a book: Take Five | Meditations with John Henry Newman, written by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Vélez and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This particular paragraph, referenced above, which begins with a direct quote from soon-to-be canonized priest, cardinal and poet, John Henry Newman: “Study is good, but it gets us only so far . . .” is actually the 15th in a series of 76 concise, logically organized meditations moving from the elementary to the sublime. Each meditation–one per page–is built upon the great man’s writings and remarkably rich spirituality. Whether taken whole in one reading or in part page-by-page over a course of weeks and months, these wonderfully insightful meditations will open up, even to the busiest reader in the midst of the world, a unique pathway into prayer and contemplation. My advice to spiritual inquirers at all levels, from the novice to the spiritually adept, is to follow the authors’ recommendation to use this book as a guide for daily prayer and meditation. The structure of the book itself is ideal: first, the authors introduce us to Cardinal Newman, the man, where we are given the opportunity to get to know him through a brief sketch of his life and spirituality at the beginning of the book. This is something readers will likely find themselves referring to again and again, prompting many, I suspect, to even wider explorations of this most gifted Christian leader. Then comes the meditations, consisting of a short summary of Newman’s thoughts on subjects taken, as the authors explain, from various salient points for which Newman is justly remembered: The pursuit of objective religious truth; Teaching on the Virtues; Defense of the Catholic Church; A devout spiritual and moral life; and Generosity and loyalty in his friendships, which sets the topic and tone for each meditation to follow. Each meditation consists of an excerpt taken from Newman’s thirty-plus volumes of writings and diaries. Next comes three brief and extremely useful sections entitled: “Think About It,” which establishes a prayerfully resonant tone throughout the book; “Just Imagine,” which provides a vivid, prayerful experience of the Scriptures that tie in, and finally, “Remember,” a pithy summation which the authors suggest may be used as a daily aspiration. Each meditation is given its own page, which makes it ideal for daily reflection for readers on the go. This book is a must have for every serious Catholic who wants to take their faith to the next level, which is to respond appropriately to the universal call to holiness and seek interior union with God.
About Newman
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