Unearthly Beauty
By Guy Nicholls,
Gracewing, 352pp, £25/$31
Having waited so long for this event, it is almost a shock to see the title “St John Henry Newman” on the cover of this book. Yet this shock is one of joy – that the holiness of this great English churchman has at last been recognised by canonisation.
Fr Guy Nicholls’s study of Newman’s understanding of beauty brings its own original contribution to Newman studies, one less familiar than his famous theological works – but a vital aspect of his work. He discusses Newman’s attitude to music, poetry, architecture and the liturgy. These were important not merely for the aesthetic pleasure they provided but also because they “bring us closer to the transcendent truth of God through the sacramental signs embodied in His church on earth”. Newman was not unworldly – as the founder of the Birmingham Oratory and University College Dublin, as well as the Oratory School, he had strong views on practical matters – but he was otherworldly: beauty, like truth, was an intrinsic attribute of God, and God was the goal and fulfilment of human life.
