Cynics might argue that the hymn’s words are little more than Hallmark card banalities. Newman himself worried that his fellow Victorians sentimentalised them and he strongly discouraged their use at funerals. But if the hymn was simply a bromide how did it nourish Gandhi as he suffered imprisonment, assault and near-death fasts? The Indian leader thought the phrase “one step enough for me” contained an entire political philosophy. It reminded him, as he faced one crisis after another, to act in the present and not to worry about the future.
Gandhi’s interpretation of the hymn might have surprised Newman, but it wouldn’t have scandalised him. Although he is portrayed as a ghostly intellectual Newman had a strong social conscience. As a cardinal he was entitled to live in Rome but he insisted on remaining a parish priest in blighted Birmingham.
When Benedict XVI beatifies Newman on 19 September he is not simply proclaiming that the cardinal was a holy man. He is saying that Newman’s life and teaching are of universal significance. Gandhi’s love of “Lead, kindly Light” proves that Newman is not just for Catholics. With its primordial imagery of dark and light the hymn speaks to anyone who is struggling, amid the gloom, to take the next step towards truth.
Yes, the virtuous life and matchless writings of John Henry Newman are indeed of universal signficance. Not just for Anglicans and Roman Catholics, nor even just for Christians, but for all humanity, as the apt example of Mohatma Ghandi shows.
I’m delighted that the pope (who has long admitted to being a Newman lover) will officially canonize Newman during the papal visit to England in September. Personally, I hope that he might even take a step beyond that and declare Newman a Doctor of the whole Church, thus joining the elite group of 36 or so other teachers recognized as having universal and enduring significance.
But when I think of Newman, it’s not that Victorian hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” that comes to mind, but his major works, including his revolutionary 1845 essay [b]On the Development of Christian Doctrine[/b], and his inspiring spiritual autobiography [b]Apologia Pro Vita Sua[/b] (1864). But best of all (IMHO), his immortal [b]Parochial and Plain Sermons[/b] from the pulpit of St. Mary’s, Oxford during his Anglican days.
David Handy+