Oxford Movement

The Veil on the Face of Moses and Cardinal Newman

March 2, 2016 in Oxford Movement No Comments Tags: John Henry Newman, Moses, veil

Today’s reading from Morning Prayer tells how Moses went up to the holy mountain and there saw God.

²⁹When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. ³⁰And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. ³¹But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. ³²And afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.³³And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; ³⁴but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, ³⁵the people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone; and Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Newman refers to this passage in a curious poem which he wrote on January 9, 1833 while at sea.

BANISH’D the House of sacred rest,
Amid a thoughtless throng,
At length I heard its creed confess’d,
And knelt the saints among.

Artless his strain and unadorn’d,
Who spoke Christ’s message there;
But what at home I might have scorn’d,
Now charm’d my famish’d ear.

Lord, grant me this abiding grace,
Thy Word and sons to know;
To pierce the veil on Moses’ face,
Although his speech be slow.

The grammar of the poem and its allusions are not easy. What does the word “banished” modify? Or is it an imitation of the Latin ablative absolute? What is “the House of sacred rest”?

Newman entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, but he was already feeling the pull in 1833. My stab at an interpretation is that “the House of sacred rest” is the Roman Catholic Church; it has been “banished” from England. Somewhere in the Mediterranean Newman, the “I” of the poem, amid a thoughtless throng heard its (the Roman Catholic Church’s) creed confessed and knelt among its saints.

The Catholic preacher was not very good (nothing new there) and, unlike the learned Anglican divines, was artless and unadorned. But Newman, who would have looked down on such preaching at home (in the Anglican Church? In Oxford?) had not heard the word of God preached in while and was famished for it.

Newman prays for the grace to recognize God’s Word and children in all circumstances. He asks to see the glory hidden behind an unprepossessing human façade, as Moses’ face was hidden behind the veil. The preacher that Newman heard was not a good speaker – but then neither was Moses, who told God that he couldn’t speak to Pharaoh, so God appointed Aaron as his spokesman.

The Preaching of Repentance: You Can’t Win

February 29, 2016 in Oxford Movement, repentance No Comments Tags: John Keble, Lent, repentance

Father Scharbach spoke of his attempts in his earlier years to preach fire and brimstone in the New York subway. (Although I have often thought that having to commute on the subway is sufficient penance for anything short of murder.) The attempt was not successful. On the other hand, Pope Francis has been criticized for emphasizing the mercy of God too much.

John Keble, one of the founders of the Oxford Movement, was also an astute pastor. He noticed that there was a difficulty in preaching that was not easy to overcome. The hearers often hear what they want to hear, not what they need to hear, no matter what the priest says. This is especially true during Lent.

What should be emphasized: the wrath of God against evil, or the mercy of God to sinners? Keble was frustrated:

Now in teaching repentance, there is of course a danger of erring on either side of this declaration. One many may speak, or seem to speak, of God’s wrath against sinners only; another only of His love and mercy to His redeemed; and even if both be fully set forth, according to their due proportions, both will not always be alike attended to.

The hearers will vary away with them, too commonly, only that part of what is said which suits their own temper and frame of mind. The hardened will lay hold of whatever is said on praise of God’s great and overflowing mercy; while the bruised and wounded in heart, the tender conscience, will be over-much struck by the severe and awful part of the doctrine.

And thus it will too often follow, that each learner will dwell on just that portion of the instruction, which is own case did not so much require. So it is in reading or hearing the Bible: no wonder, therefore, that so it should be in men’s way of receiving the instruction and advice of Christ’s servants; no wonder if they often seem to be unduly severe, or overindulgent, when perhaps, if all they said was attended to, they would be found simply to have repeated God’s message.

This, then, is one great danger, whenever we preach, as in Lent we must preach, upon repentance: namely, that the hardened and tender consciences will often take to themselves what was properly meant for the other.

So we have the person who has missed mass in agonies of conscience while the Mafia don thinks that the priest will make everything right with God in return for a suitable donation. What’s a preacher to do?

Let us remember to pray for those who preach the word of God to us, that we will hear what we need to hear.