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At the Newman Society, we are blessed with many gifted scholars: recently, two among them discovered this astonishing Medieval Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, which they have transcribed for our enjoyment. It is attributed to St John of the Crossword, but is probably pseudepigraphical; the true authorship is lost to […]

“St. Arbuck”, by St John of the Crossword


Jan Beerblock, De ziekenzalen van het Sint-Janshospitaal (The Wards at Saint John’s Hospital), 1778 March 2020, Twilight Shift The hospital had one very big perk for a junior doctor at the time, a large doctors’ mess facility. Unlike most doctors’ messes, limited to the whole spectrum of cupboard sizes, from the cozy […]

A Quiet Night and a Perfect End, by Max Hollowday, ...



I have recently had the misfortune of hearing a truly terrible happy-clappy rewriting of Newman’s hymn Lead Kindly Light, arranged for guitar, drum kit, and Hozier-wannabe vocalist. I don’t mean to slate anyone who likes that kind of thing; only to say that the wild incongruity of the genre and […]

Lead Kindly Light, by Eleni Thwaites





A Lenten poem based on a Meditation by Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471) – by an anonymous student “Observe attentively with the eye of your heart how I am hanging upon the cross.   I’m hanging with outstretched arms so that I can embrace you whenever you come to me.   […]

A Sword will Pierce your Heart


Earlier this year, our friends in the Oxford Companions established a proto-Shrine to Blessed Gerard, founder of  the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. The Shrine stands at the entrance to the Catholic Chaplaincy of the University and was blessed by […]

Blessed Gerard, a saint yet to be sainted?




Dear Friends in Christ, Te Deum laudamus! May I take this opportunity to firstly wish you all a very Merry Christmas and now also a very Happy New Year! I hope that this year will be filled with many blessings for us all and especially for the Society. It would […]

Happy New Year!