Today we celebrate the Feast of St John Henry Newman, Cardinal and Patron of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The image below, which is in the public domain, is a portrait painted by Sir John Everett Millais, of St John Henry as a Cardinal.

In October 1845, John Henry Newman wrote to his friends from Littlemore, near Oxford, where he was staying. He said: ‘I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from his youth, has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the countries of the North, then of England. After thirty years’ (almost) waiting, he was without his own act sent here. … He is a simple, holy man; and withal gifted with remarkable powers. He does not know of my intention; but I mean to ask of him admission into the One Fold of Christ …’ We know that this indeed happened, and that (now) Blessed Dominic Barberi did indeed receive Newman into the ‘One Fold of Christ’ on a wet night on 9 October 1845.

So today we celebrate the power and peace of this commitment, and its repercussions down the years up to our own day. May St John Henry pray for us, that we may truly plumb the depths of belonging to the ‘One True Fold of Christ’, and may God bless you in this.