The Meaning and History of the Seal of the Newman Apostolate

The official national emblem of the Newman Apostolate was designed by Father (later Monsignor) John W. Keogh, first Chaplain-General of the Newman Apostolate and the Robbins Company, and approved by the student Executive Council of the old national Federation of College Catholic Clubs, an ancestor of the present National Catholic Student Coalition, at their Tenth Annual Conference on July 5, 1925, and registered with the U.S. Patent Office at that time. 

The emblem of the Newman Apostolate is a seal of seven sides which circumscribes the shield taken from the coat of arms of John Henry Cardinal Newman, of Oxford University, who died in 1890.  His shield consists of three hearts, two divided from the third by a wavy line.  The lone bottom heart is Cardinal Newman's, still here below in the valley of tears, conversing across and beyond the river of life (symbolized by the wavy line) with the two hearts of Jesus and Mary, the two hearts above.  The coat of arms, in heraldic parlance, reads:  "Or a fesse wavy gules, between three hearts places 2, 1 proper."  From this heraldic-speak, the colors would translate as follows:  the field or background is or, gold or yellow, the fesse, fascia, across the escutcheon is gules, red (as the trials of life, even a Cardinal's), and the 2 and 1 hearts proper, natural color, dark red. 

A band, inscribed with Newman's motto, Cor ad Cor Loquitur (Heart Speaks to Heart) and three pearls, so placed as to appear beneath the shield, encircles the coat of arms.  Radiating from the band to each point of the seal are seven large heraldic "shafts of light."  Within each segment formed by the extended rays are seven small "shafts of light." 

The seven sides are symbolic of the Seven Sacraments of the Church.  The large shafts of light represent the light of Sanctifying Grace, as well as being symbolic of other truths of the Catholic Faith.  The small shafts of light signify the pervading light of actual grace.  The single human heart tends upward, across the wavy line of trials and temptations of this life to union with the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  The three pearls stand for the Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity.