Newmania – 13: The ventures of faith
Newman cites tomorrow’s Gospel in a sermon entitled “The Ventures of Faith“:
Such were the ventures made in faith, and in uncertainty, by Apostles. Our Saviour, in a passage of St. Luke’s Gospel, binds upon us all the necessity of deliberately doing the like,—”Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it, begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and is not able to finish.” And then He presently adds, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My {299} disciple:” [Luke xiv. 28-33.] thus warning us of the full sacrifice we must make. We give up our all to Him; and He is to claim this or that, or grant us somewhat of it for a season, according to His good pleasure. On the other hand, the case of the rich young man, who went away sorrowful, when our Lord bade him give up his all and follow Him, is an instance of one who had not faith to make the venture of this world for the next, upon His word.
If then faith be the essence of a Christian life, and if it be what I have now described, it follows that our duty lies in risking upon Christ’s word what we have, for what we have not; and doing so in a noble, generous way, not indeed rashly or lightly, still without knowing accurately what we are doing, not knowing either what we give up, nor again what we shall gain; uncertain about our reward, uncertain about our extent of sacrifice, in all respects leaning, waiting upon Him, trusting in Him to fulfil His promise, trusting in Him to enable us to fulfil our own vows, and so in all respects proceeding without carefulness or anxiety about the future.
The “sad infirmity of men, called Christians,” however, commonly do not venture much upon faith:
This is the question, What have we ventured? I really fear, when we come to examine, it will be found that there is nothing we resolve, nothing we do, nothing we do not do, nothing we avoid, nothing we choose, nothing we give up, nothing we pursue, which we should not resolve, and do, and not do, and avoid, and choose, and give up, and pursue, if Christ had not died, and heaven were not promised us. I really fear that most men called Christians, whatever they may profess, whatever they may think they feel, whatever warmth and illumination and love they may claim as their own, yet would go on almost as they do, neither much better nor much worse, if they believed Christianity to be a fable.
” our duty lies in risking upon Christ’s word what we have, for what we have not; and doing so in a noble, generous way,”
Good reflection for Memorial Day. May they rest in peace.
That reflection also has a stirring passage about John the Apostle: “St. John [...] had still more to bear, dying last of the Apostles[...]. He had to hear bereavement, first, of his brother, then of the other Apostles. He had to bear a length of years in loneliness, exile, and weakness. He had to experience the dreariness of being solitary, when those whom he loved had been summoned away. He had to live in his own thoughts, without familiar friend, with those only about him who belonged to a younger generation. Of him were demanded by his gracious Lord, as pledges of his faith, all his eye loved and his heart held converse with. [...] Well might so great a Saint say, at the end of his days “Come, Lord Jesus!” as those who are weary of the night, and wait for the morning.”
I wonder how old Newman was when he wrote that.
Claire:
At the end of his volume of Sermons on Subjects of the Day, Newman supplied the dates when he had preached his sermons; unfortunately this is not available on the Newmanreader.org. According to that list, Newman preached “The Ventures of Faith” in 1836, when he was thirty-five years old. He would live to be ninety.
“What have we ventured for Christ?”
This is one instance where I think that members of the clergy have an advantage over us. They did cross a point, at ordination, when they made a choice to venture their life for Christ. (We have to make sure that it’s a sacrifice, by giving them a hard time and by treating them poorly enough to guarantee that they would not make that choice for any other reason!) Most of us, at least in my corner of the world, only make half-hearted, tentative efforts, and Newman’s description fits us only too well.
In general it seems to me that Newman is not particularly nice. I would dismiss him, except for the fact that his unpleasant assessments often seem accurate — albeit annoyingly so.
Claire, if you Love someone, you want your beloved to know The Truth, which is why we are not called to compromise The Truth, we are called to witness to The Truth, both in public and in private, out of Charity for all those we Love.
Nancy, here’s Newman’s first concrete example of witnessing to the Truth: “ For instance: St. Barnabas had a property in Cyprus; he gave it up for the poor of Christ. Here is an intelligible sacrifice. He did something he would not have done, unless the Gospel were true. ” I don’t know if you’ve given away all your life savings to the poor in witness to the Truth, but I, for one, am not ready to do that any time soon.
Yes, Newman reinforces the gospel by repeating that we are called to witness to The Truth by our actions and way of life, but it’s not so easy to make such a radical choice.
Clair, although we are all called to be Saints, there would be no need for the Tenth Commandment regarding those who covet thy neighbors goods if we were all called to sell all of our possessions in order to follow Him. This does not change the fact that all things are passing, only Love remains.
I suppose there is quite a lot of overlap between what the good that can be understood and done by the conscience outside of special revelation, and the good done by “the saints”–to use the Pauline term for Christians.