Newman’s The Dream of Gerontius

An immense grace

The canonization of John Henry Newman is an immense grace for many reasons. His humility and fortitude, his patience and perseverance, his commitment to the truth and to conscience, his love for Jesus and his Church, his devotion to Our Lady, his theological endeavours and commitment to education, his exemplary priestly life and care for the poor, are all so many beauties which will shine more brightly in the sky of the Church and will encourage the People of God towards holiness.

Among all these blessings The Dream of Gerontius is also well worth noting and savouring. His longest and most successful poem, it was written in January 1865. He told a friend afterwards: “It came into my head to write it, I really can’t tell how. And I wrote on till it was finished, on small bits of paper, and I could no more write anything else by willing it than I could fly”. Indeed Gerontius has a movement all of its own. A dramatic and powerful text, it describes the journey of an elderly Catholic man, Gerontius, from the moment of his death until his judgement. It is a poem, a dream and a prayer and invites reading, rereading and meditation.

A literary masterpiece

From the start Gerontius had immense appeal, and not just among Catholics. Gladstone who was a devout Anglican wrote to Newman in 1868: “I own that it seems to me the most remarkable production in its own very high walk since the unapproachable Paradiso of Dante”. The Free Churchman, General Charles Gordon, who died in 1885 at the taking of Khartoum, used the poem in his very last moments, marking with a pencil all the passages which struck him regarding death and prayer. In 1900 the composer Edward Elgar put Gerontius to music in which was his greatest choral and orchestral work. It was also the composition he most prized in his life. As he confided to a friend: “I think you will find Gerontius far beyond anything I have yet written – I like it … and have written my own heart’s blood into the score”.

Newman’s poem is full of literary value, variety and colour. The language at times moves slowly and other times takes on a swift pace. The sounds convey the atmosphere at each step of the journey. There are litanies and hymns, most notably Praise to the Holiest in the height. Because it is a “dream” Gerontius does not make everything explicit about the soul’s journey from death bed to Purgatory. For this reason the poem invites personal reflection and prayer. The overall framework of the poem is a dialogue between the soul of Gerontius and his faithful guardian angel, who accompanies him to the entrance to Purgatory. 

Though a literary masterpiece, Newman’s poem appealed and continues to appeal to people above all by its religious theme: the mystery of death and judgement. For example the description of the separated soul, surely a near-ineffable concept, is striking. Straight after death Gerontius says:

“I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed. / A strange refreshment: for I feel in me / An inexpressive lightness, and a sense / Of freedom, as I were at length myself, / And ne’re had been before. / How still it is! (…) Ah! Whence is this? What is this severance? / This silence pours a solitariness / Into the very essence of my soul; / And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet, / Hath something too of sternness and of pain, / For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring / By a strange introversion, and perforce / I now begin to feed upon myself, / Because I have nought else to feed upon.”

Accompanied solitude

Gerontius is an extraordinarily rich text and contains many aspects of Catholic teaching and perspectives for prayer. Here we might focus on one aspect of the drama of the old man’s death and entrance into the next life. This we could call the “accompanied solitude” of a Christian’s death. Death is a profoundly personal event. Everyone dies alone. At the same time, within the Communion of the Saints, within the Church, we are never alone, in life or in death. Communion with Christ always means communion with all those who are united in Christ.

Newman expresses this consoling reality in two ways in particular. While the poem is intensely personal in so far as we are privileged witnesses to the unique experience of Gerontius in the sublime moment of transition into the next life, the text is constantly full of others who lovingly accompany the old man on his journey, especially those praying around his death-bed, and his guardian angel and the other angels.

The pilgrim Church at prayer

The poem opens with Gerontius’ realization: “JESU, MARIA – I am near to death, / And though art calling me; I know it now”. Shortly after he asks his friends for prayers: “‘Tis death, – O loving friends, your prayers! – ‘tis he! (…) This it is my dearest, this; / So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray”.

This is followed by the first of several litanies, which echo the liturgy and contain invocations to Mary and the saints, and appeal to God’s mercy in virtue of the mysteries of Jesus’ life: “By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross, / Rescue him from endless loss. / By Thy death and thy burial, / Save him from a final fall; / By thy rising from the tomb, / By thy mounting up above, / By the Spirit’s gracious love, / Save him in the day of doom.”

The faithful presence of the earthly Church is also manifest in the priest who recites the final Commendation as Gerontius is dying. Towards the end of the poem the prayer of the faithful on earth is heard again. The Angel tells Gerontius’ soul: “Thy judgment now is near, for we are come / Into the veiled presence of our God”. The soul replies: “I hear the voices that I left on earth”. The Angel explains: “It is the voice for friends around thy bed, / Who say the ‘Subvenite’ with the priest. / Hither the echoes come”.

At the beginning and at the end of the poem, Gerontius is supported by the prayers of the living. Newman shows that the Communion of Saints is a reality in life, in death and beyond death. As the council teaches: “All indeed who are of Christ and who have his Spirit form one Church and in Christ cleave together” (Lumen Gentium 49).

His faithful angel

In speaking of how the angels, and especially the guardian angel accompanies the soul, Newman is echoing a long tradition held by many saints and mystics including Saints Thomas Aquinas, Bernardine of Sienna, Catherine of Genoa and Francis de Sales.

Gerontius’ Angel introduces himself with the words: “My work is done, / My task is o’er, / And so I come, / Taking it home, / For the crown is won, / Alleluia, / For evermore.” Throughout Gerontius’ journey the Angel is his faithful guide and always speaks to him with great love and tenderness. The poem ends with these words of the Angel, which again express the “accompanied solitude” of death within the Communion of the Saints:

Softly and gently, dearest, sweetest soul,

In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,

And, o’er the penal waters, as they roll,

I poise thee, and I lower thee, and I hold thee.

And carefully I dip thee in the lake,

And though, without a sob or a resistance,

Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,

Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.

Angels, to whom the willing task is given,

Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;

And Masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,

Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most Highest.

Farewell, but not forever! brother dear,

Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;

Swiftly shall pass the night of trial here,

And I will come and wake thee on the morrow”.

Newman said that the Dream of Gerontius “was written by accident – and it was published by accident”. A providential and wonderful “accident” indeed.