Newman On The Church Visible and Invisible

Our contributor for today's 'Journeying With Newman' podcast is Elizabeth Huddleston, the Managing Editor of the Newman Studies Journal – an interdisciplinary research publication dedicated to the life, work, and thought of John Henry Newman and its relevance for our time.

Elizabeth is looking at Sermon 16 of Cardinal Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons. It examines 'The Church Visible and Invisible'.

"Newman emphasised throughout his writings that the church is comprised of both of our Earthly Church - made up of the Magisterium, the laity - and what Newman calls the Schola Theologorum - which is best described as theologians throughout history who helped to investigate and interpret divine revelation.

"The church is comprised of both living sinners and saints, those in purgatory, and those already blessed with the beatific vision - the saints. So often we think of our reality as what we experience through our senses, however, our actual experience of the Church goes much deeper. As Newman reminds us, we are in communion with the saints whose experience of God helps to reveal God's love to us today.

"Newman's words are encouraging to me because they act as a constant reminder that the Trinitarian God is always present and active in the church through the continuously invigorating words of the saints."