Book Review: The Heart of Newman ed. by Erich Przywara, S.J.

The Heart of Newman: A Synthesis Arranged by Erich Przywara, S.J., with a forward by Joseph Pearce

This anthology of longer quotes from the writings of John Henry Cardinal Newman covers the wide swath of his career, including selections from sermons and more formal writings. The writings are grouped in thematic sets, covering topics like faith, God and His various relations to us, our relationship to this fallen world and to the next world. Most selections are only a page or two and all contain some nice insights or ideas.

Newman's writing style is very down-to-earth. He communicates ideas, even difficult ones, with a clarity and simplicity that does not have the Victorian stuffiness you'd expect from a British theologian from the mid- to late-1800s. His work is very easy to read and still has a richness that calls the reader to a deeper understanding of the faith. The individual selections are short enough to make this a good daily devotional (though that's not the way it is written), letting the reader spend some quality time with a great thinker and a holy Christian.

Highly recommended.

Sample Text:

The real love of man must depend on practice, and therefore, must begin by exercising itself on our friends around us, otherwise it will have no existence. By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with the their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences, and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity, which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth. [p. 254]