Thoughts of Newman

“The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:5.

Of all the thoughts which rise in the mind when contemplating the sojourn of our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth, none perhaps is more affecting and subduing than the obscurity which attended it. I do not mean His obscure condition, in the sense of its being humble; but the obscurity in which He was shrouded, and the secrecy which He observed.

You may recollect, my brethren, our Lord’s words when on the day of His resurrection He had joined the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and found them sad and perplexed in consequence of His death. He said, “Ought not Christ to suffer these things, and so enter into His glory?” He appealed to the fitness and congruity which existed between this otherwise surprising event and the other truths which had been revealed concerning the Divine purpose of saving the world. And so, too, St. Paul, in speaking of the same wonderful appointment of God; “It became Him,” he says, “for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, who had brought many sons unto glory

I am going to ask you a question, my dear brethren, so trite, and therefore so uninteresting at first sight, that you may wonder why I put it, and may object that it will be difficult to fix the mind on it, and may anticipate that nothing profitable can be made of it. It is this:-“Why were you sent into the world?” Yet, after all, it is perhaps a thought more obvious than it is common, more easy than it is familiar; I mean it ought to come into your minds,