[Message from our Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler]
Dear friends,
Today, my family and I give thanks, and we also look ahead to the season of Advent. In that spirit, I would like to share with you a passage from a sermon of St. John Henry Newman (1801-90), whom Pope Leo recently declared a doctor of the Church – one of 38 great teachers in the history of Catholicism.
A renowned Anglican preacher and convert to Catholicism, Newman wrote several important books including The Idea of a University. Below, he reflects on how God changes humankind:
Had He so pleased, He might have found, when we sinned, other beings to do Him service, casting us into hell; but He purposed to save and to change us. And in like manner all that belongs to us, our reason, our affections, our pursuits, our relations in life, He needs nothing put aside in His disciples, but all sanctified. Therefore, instead of sending His Son from heaven, He sent Him forth as the Son of Mary, to show that all our sorrow and all our corruption can be blessed and changed by Him. The very punishment of the fall, the very taint of birth-sin, admits of a cure by the coming of Christ.
As Newman says, God did not reject us because of our sin and corruption. Instead, He chose to sanctify us.
Today, I give thanks that God loved us so much that he chose “to save and change us.” Happy Thanksgiving.
If you would like to read Newman’s full sermon, you can do so here.
Yours in Christ,
Daniel Wasserman-Soler
Executive Director
Lumen Christi Institute