On October 13th, Pope Francis named Cardinal Newman a saint.
As Pope Francis named Cardinal John Henry Newman a saint Sunday, he told Catholics that the goal of life is a transforming encounter with Jesus.
“The ultimate goal is not health or wellness, but the encounter with Jesus … He alone frees us from evil and heals our hearts. Only an encounter with him can save, can make life full and beautiful,” Pope Francis said at the canonization Mass in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 13.
A longtime Newman scholar, MaterCare's Spiritual Advisor Father Richard Taylor tells us, "A study of the life and work of Cardinal Newman provides the occasion for considering many aspects of the Catholic life, and especially of the Catholic life as a secular and ecclesial reality. He seems to have addressed the major issues of his day in so far as these had a bearing upon faith. The changes he witnessed during his long life have continued right through the twentieth century and into the twenty first century. The effects which he thought those changes would bring are everywhere apparent. The positive and negative aspects he delineated in what was taking place he patiently analysed in greater or lesser detail as occasion demanded during his lifetime. And he underwent many changes himself while remaining basically anchored in his perception of the overwhelming majesty of God and of his own relationship to him."