Our Crest
Our crest was developed with the desire to connect to the tradition and heritage that Newman College inherits. Its elements all speak to the identity of the school.
The cross and three hearts are elements taken from Newman's own crest. The cross represents the centrality of Christ in the purpose of the school. The three hearts represent both the Holy Trinity and Newman's motto of 'heart speaks to heart', referring to the communion of God and man, and our nature as relational beings made in the image of God.
The book of Alpha and Omega represents the educational purpose of the school which is to introduce students to the best that has been thought and said, recognising God as the beginning and end of all learning.
The papal keys form the foundation of the crest, speaking to the school's submission to the teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
The gold of the shield and keys comes from the gold on Newman's crest, and represent the sovereignty and glory of God. The blue represents the school's pursuit of truth and piety.
OUR MOTTO
Ex umbris in veritatem: Out of shadows into truth
Our motto derives from the inscription on Saint John Henry Newman's tombstone, which communicates two distinct yet connected metaphors central to our school identity.
Firstly, it speaks to the educational journey of the formation of a learner, and as such has classical connections to Plato's 'Allegory of The Cave' in his Republic which tells the story of the journey of wisdom presented as an individual's escape from a cave in which shadows on a wall are presented as the totality of reality.
Progressing through the darkness and into the light of truth and reality is the difficult but necessary journey for all people. But this journey is not merely intellectual, as the second metaphor is found in moving from shadows into truth, symbolic of the journey of faith and the sanctification and growth in wisdom and virtue that is the gift of the grace of Christ.
