Archbishop Hebda Quotes Newman

Archbishop Hebda, installed yesterday (May 13, 2016) as the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, ended his homily at the installation Mass with a quote from a prayer of Blessed John Henry “Patrimony” Cardinal Newman.

“The commemorative card that you have received today bears a portion of a prayer composed by Blessed John Henry Newman, a prayer that I learned from the Sisters of our soon-to-be-saint, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I hope that you will take it home and allow it to touch your heart as it has touched mine. May it be our fervent prayer this day and always:

‘Dear Jesus, help me to spread thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may be only a radiance of thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but ONLY JESUS.’”

St. John’s Abbey, which is autonomous, of course, is geographically situated in the Diocese of St. Cloud. Archbishop Hebda, as archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, is the metropolitan of the province (and I assume the geographical extent of the province would be the state of Minnesota?).  Moreover, metropolitan archbishops have very little jurisdictional authority over suffragan dioceses.  In other words, the canonical connections between Archbishop Hebda and the St. John’s Oblates are thin-to-non-existent.  But his spiritual influence can be vast and can conceivably extend to autonomous religious communities (and their oblates, third-order members, etc.) in suffragan sees.  So, for that reason, it seems worth quoting him quoting Newman.