Paul Shrimpton on the Bicentenary of Newman's First Sermon (National Institute for Newman Studies)
Good friend of the Newman Centre and leading Newman historian Dr. Paul Shrimpton (Magdalen College School, Oxford) has published a wonderful article celebrating the bicentenary of St. John Henry Newman's first sermon at Holy Trinity Church, Over Worton, Oxfordshire, as well as his time as a curate at St. Clement's Church, Oxford. You can read the full article here, published by the National Institute for Newman Studies (NINS).
'Two hundred years ago, on Wednesday 23 June 1824, John Henry Newman preached his first sermon. It was delivered in the evening at Holy Trinity Church, Over Worton, a village seventeen miles north of Oxford, in the parish of Rev. Walter Mayers, who had been Newman’s principal mentor since the religious conversion he underwent in 1816. Four days later, on Sunday 27 June, Newman took up duties as curate in the parish of St. Clement’s, Oxford and preached his second sermon at a morning service presided over by the elderly rector, John Gutch. The following Sunday, 4 July, Newman took the service himself and reused the sermon he had preached at Over Worton. During his nineteen months as curate at St. Clement’s, Newman prepared and preached 150 different sermons, a most unusual feat for a newly ordained clergyman.'
'Newman’s time at St. Clement’s was one of intense activity, and during it he underwent a profound change. He had arrived intent on changing the lives of his parishioners, but he left a changed man himself, transformed by the plain, working-class men and women he encountered. It is surely not an exaggeration to say that his dealings with the baker, brewer, and butcher forced him to clarify his theological ideas.'
Dr. Paul Shrimpton is the author of Conscience before Conformity: Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Resistance in Nazi Germany (2018), as well as two books on St John Henry Newman: A Catholic Eton? Newman’s Oratory School (2005) and The ‘Making of Men’: the Idea and Reality of Newman’s University in Oxford and Dublin (2014). Recently he brought out two volumes of Newman’s unpublished university papers, My Campaign in Ireland, Parts I & II, both of which are critical editions. He teaches at Magdalen College School, Oxford.
