Supernatural Imagination in Newman and Hopkins: The Mind’s Road to God

Cardinal Newman Lecture

Presented by Bernadette Waterman Ward, PhD

Newman, and Hopkins who learned from Newman, had a vivid understanding of the way that one can encounter God throught the imagination, especially the literary imagination. Using Newman’s Callista and some of his sermons, and the poetry of Hopkins such as “The Wreck of the Deutschland”, we can see this concept at work. Both writers want people to guard their imaginations, so as to open to God rather than lured into revering the work of their own minds.

Educated at Harvard and Stanford, Bernadette Waterman Ward is a Professor of English and the King Fellow at the University of Dallas. She wrote Eliot’s Angels: Rene Girard, George Eliot and Mimetic Desire (2022, University of Notre Dame Press) and World as Word: Philosophical  Theology in Gerard Manley Hopkins. Past President, current secretary  of the St. John Henry Newman Association, she has served in its  board for more than two decades, and  has written numerous articles on Newman. On the board of scholars for the Hopkins Quarterly, she writes frequently on Hopkins. She is also on the board of University Faculty for Life, and in that capacity has published on more recent literature. She  has published one drama,  and some poetry.

Date: Saturday, October 17th, 2026
Time: 9am–1pm (Mass is at noon with lunch following)
Location: In person and livestream, Center for Spirituality at The Oratory

Registration is appreciated. This event is offered free of charge as a gift to the community from the Oratory.