Vision of Saint Paul of the Cross: Fr Dominic comes to England
St. Paul of the Cross, in the year 1725, had just received from the Holy See the first permission to gather companions around him and form the nucleus of a new Congregation, or body of Religious in the Church. When or his deathbed, in 1775, he said he had prayed for the conversion of England for fifty years. It must be at the very time when he had received the first ecclesiastical sanction that this inspired devotion took possession of him. He was wont to say that whenever he knelt in prayer England came before his mind. After fifty year's prayer, almost the last time he ever said Mass, a brother heard him exclaim, as if he had had an ecstasy: "Where have I been now? .. Oh what have I seen! - my children in England! My religious in England!". These words remained like a prophecy amongst our ancient Fathers; but no one strove to see to their fulfillment.
Generations had come and gone, the religious Orders were scattered, Europe became one great battlefield, on which kingdoms and titles seemed to rise and fall with the victories or reverses of one man's sword. When a partial reverse sheathed that sword at length, and the Pontiff returned to Rome and the scattered members of the various Religious bodies essayed to reassemble, this old tradition of our Congregation began to revive.
Nearly forty years after the death of St. Paul, a poor orphan boy, who tended a few flocks for his uncle and now assisted in our kitchen with the hope of one day being admitted amongst us as a laybrother, received an inspiration whilst at prayer in the church, that he was destined to labour for heretics in the north-west of Europe. Providence disposed that this poor boy should become a cleric, a priest, a professor of Theology and
afterwards a Provincial amongst the Passionists. It was Father Dominic of the Mother of God (Barberi )
In the year 1830, Fr. Dominic became acquainted with some English gentlemen who were staying in Rome. The first he knew was Sir Harry Trelawny, who had been recently received into the Church, then the Honourable and Rev. George Spencer; (afterwards Fr. Ignatius), next a Rev. Mr. Forde, and afterwards Ambrose Lisle Phillipps. It need hardly be remarked that the flow of fervour in such men as Phillipps and Spencer would be sure to light up a fire in the coldest heart, to what a pitch of enthusiasm must they have raised good Fr. Dominic, especially as he has the unconverted, well disposed but obstinate Mr. Forde to whet his controversial powers. He seemed to be all on fire with the hope of going to England, and yet fully ten or eleven years were to elapse before his desire was realized. Thatold Passionist tradition took 115 years to ripen into maturity and its fulfillment was very singular yet commonplace.
It was not till the year 1839 that a possible opening for a foundation in England and made its appearance. Fr. Spencer seemed to have found this out and wrote accordingly to Cardinal Acton. The Cardinal presented a petition to our Fathers assembled in General Chapter in Rome and it was acceded to by a majority. When matters were thus far satisfactorily arranged, the gentleman who promised to pay the expenses of the Foundation feared that he could not afford to do so and the negotiation fell through accordingly.
In this year, through the intervention of Father Spencer and a M.L'abbe Pernard of Lille, the Baroness de Croeser of Valenciennes, gave us the Chateau d’Ere near Tournay in Belgium, which was accepted. The Father destined as founder of this house was Fr. Anthony of St. Joseph, the ex- General, and Fr. Dominic was not mentioned as even a companion. The old Father, however, feeling that his age and ailments ill suited his being transplanted to a different country and climate, begged to be excused. Fr. Dominic was then sent in his place. He received the news in S. Sosio, on the borders of Naples, just as he had returned from a heavy mission, and his frame broken and afflicted with sores and spasms. He would not wait to rest; but, in spite of doctors and friends, mounted a shaggy pony, to be supported in its back by two attendants and thus made his way across a broken craggy piece of mountain pathway until he reached the main road for Rome. Here he stayed but a short time in preparation - more by prayer than aught else - until he departed some time in the month of May, 1840 for Belgium.
When Mgr. (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman was consecrated bishop of Melipotanus and coadjutor to Fr. Walsh, a few months after Fr. Dominic's departure from Rome, he resolved to facilitate the founding of a house for the Passionists in England. The stream that was to float him over was now composed of three tributaries, doctors Walsh, Wiseman and Father Spencer, added to his own longing desire.We are not surprised then at noticing in our old annals that Fr. Dominic, in his anxiety to reach England, outstripped the course of Providence and journeyed across the Straits of Dover, on receiving a little encouragement, touched English soil for the first time, on 5th November, 1840, to find that his journey was apparently unsatisfactory and to find himself back again in Ere in a few weeks, a disappointed man in human opinion, but a figure in the hands of Providence improved by this new chiselling of the cross.
During the summer of 1841, Frs. Walsh and Wiseman were sojourning, for a short time, in Belgium and wrote to Fr. Dominic to meet them in Brussels to see if any final, or rather initial, arrangement might be made. Father Dominic would accept any conditions which might give him a foothold in England. Something definite was agreed upon. He wrote to the General for companions. He left Tournay, with Fr. Amadeus, on 30th September, 1841. The tradition is fulfilled.
The state of the Catholic Church in England some forty years ago, was very wretched indeed. Twelve years had elapsed since Emancipation and Catholics, in the words of Moore, 'had scarcely learned how to walk upon emancipated legs'. There were only 560 priests in the whole of England andthese were scattered about, with parishes large enough for a diocese now. To give a notion of how things were, we quote the following from the Catholic Directory of the year 1840. “St. Mary's, Moorfields, the district attached to this chapel includes, with a trifling exception, all the city; alsoSaffron ill, Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, besides Islington, Holloway, Stoke Newington, Kingsland, Hackney and Homerton.”
There were Religious incogniti here and there, Benedictines, Jesuits, a few Franciscans and Dominicans; but they were not recognised as such and all used their secular names with a mister prefixed and different little from the laity in their apparel. The dread of the old penal laws still remained and the hunted persecuted Catholics could hardly remove the fil from their eyes in so short a period. The famine had not yet come to send the poor Irish over in thousands and consequently churches had not begun to be built with
their pennies and enlivened by their feeling piety. The converts had not yet grown into a great body, holding up their heads and daring to flaunt popery in the eyes of terror-stricken protestants. The old Catholics, who were decimated fractured and were emerging from almost the grave, had scarcely power or means enough to avail themselves of the new state of things. It was at this juncture the first Passionists set foot in England. Quietly and without making much noise they originated several things in England. The Passionists were the first to adopt strict community life, to wear their habits in public, to wear sandals, to give missions and retreats to the people, to wear the tonsure, to revive the offertory at Mass and to have a procession in public since the days of the Reformation. They gloried in the disgrace of the Cross, were laughed at by protestants, warned by timid catholics, and tolerated by bishops. Yet, this sort of courage became infectious so that nearly every Order now in England has followed their example.
There were two or three Fathers of Charity in England but they were engaged teaching it preexistent colleges until they might become proficient in the language. Fr. Dominic, after he had given his first mission, wrote to Fr. Gentili and begged himself and his companions to start on a missionary
career. They did so and the memory of their labours is not yet dead. There was a fulcrum found, after all, by these poor Italians, upon which several levers have since rested in moving on the Church in England to the healthy and rigorous state in which we see her now.
Let it be remembered that our Fathers came to England with no money, no benefactors, three friends and these able to assist them only by advice and patronage, and in the course of 40 years they have grown into a body of 120 religious, possessing 9 houses of the Congregation, ministering to many flocks and daily employed in the work of their Institute. Cardinal Wiseman may be said to have laid the corner-stone of the new English Church even before the hierarchy was established. He invited over members of the new or missionary bodies and fostered them carefully when they arrived. There
was no place in his large Catholic heart for small jealousies, petty rivalries, or hampering conditions. The field was large enough for all and he gave them his blessing as they laboured.
This unfettered state of existence caused the Religious Orders to spread very rapidly in England. They educated their own priests without any cost to the diocese, built their churches and schools by their own efforts, and carried on the work of the mission with great success because of their numbers and their facility in changing unsuitable for suitable pastors.