Today is the feast of Bl. Newman, a man whose impact cannot be overstated. Obviously, many of us here at StAR can attest to Newman’s impact on our own conversion, even if only indirectly through England’s Second Spring. 

To read more about Newman, please see Joseph Pearce’s piece up at Catholic Exchange, which was excerpted from his Preface to The Quotable Newman. 

I personally will never forget the joys of seeing Newman’s study at Littlemore and praying in the same chapel that he did. This was part of Thomas More’s Oxford Program, of course I was there to focus on Chesterton but Cardinal Newman was always looming large. To men such as Tolkien, Belloc, and other great Catholic converts, Newman was like a man leading an army with a lamp out of a dark cave.

What are some of your Newman experiences?