Want of Missioners: Reception of Card. Newman and others
The year 1845 opens with an account of the illness of Fr. Dominic. His missionary labours were too continuous and severe. Our rule prescribes a rest after each retreat or mission, in order that the strength thereupon expended may be replaced; but it is very difficult to find this rest without depriving many of spiritual comfort. The paucity of our number in those days, and the demand for our services, made the health of our bodies be a secondary consideration, when the health of others' souls was concerned. Retreats and missions were unheard of until Fr. Dominic began
them, in this country. The Regulars who survived the persecution of nearly three centuries, and whose existence was still illegal, the Emancipation Bill notwithstanding, were only raising their heads here and there to find themselves scattered in singlehand missions throughout the country. The clerical tonsure, about which our Scottish, Irish and British predecessors fought so lustily, was quite a thing of the past. The shaven crown and sandalled feet now appeared again. It was as if the fossil of some Pictish warrior had been dug up whole and entire and exhibited in the various villages of England.
There were only three novices or students of native growth amongst us at this time. One of them, Fr. Bernard O’Loughlin, still survives. The missionary work could be carried on only by two, Frs. Dominic and Gaudentius, and the applications came in like showers. Fr. Dominic wrote to Rome for assistants and begged the General to send him young Fathers as the language was very difficult for the older ones. Two promising young priests were the response to this appeal; but death deprived us of them just as they were able to be useful. Gifted they were, for both preached in English when scarce four months in this country - Frs. Constantine Marcellian. OurFathers broke a little more protestant ice on the feast of Corpus Christi. They had a grand open air procession in Aston, and a repetition of the same on the Sunday within the Octave. This ceremony was attended by all classes of persons and passed off decorously and solemnly, not only on the first occasion, but every year as long as we remained in that locality.
The tide of conversions from Anglicanism was setting in pretty strongly about this time and it was to be expected that our Fathers should have something to do in the way of stemming it, directing it or hurrying it. It seemed to move or by the power of Grace without much or any outside influence. Heaven was buried amongst the leaders of thought in Oxford and it leavened well nigh the whole mass. Cardinal Newman says somewhere that Dr. Russel of Maynooth did most towards his conversion by leaving him alone. The first of the Oxford men received by Fr. Domiric was Fr.
Dalgarius. He was received in Aston Hall. In the month of October, in this year, Dominic was invited to Littlemore, where he received Cardinal Newman, Fr. Staunton and another. This was a comfort to the old man's heart, as he was at the time in a rather downcast disposition. He writes to Rome, 1st Sep., 1845:
"Your reverence cannot imagine the rage of the protestants. They do all they can to pervert catholic priests and friars, in order to take reprisals and cover their confusion at seeing the best and most celebrated amongst them coming over to us. The worst of it is if they do catch an odd priest or vagabond friar, they may pervert them but they cannot make protestants of them. Protestants themselves observe this; viz. that they get the worst of ours and we the best of theirs it has become a proverb that when the pope sweeps his house he flings the dirt into the protestant Church."
A few perverted friars gave a great deal of trouble at the time and the worst of them were brought over from Italy in order to counteract the work which was being done by the Italian missionaries. The comic papers even thought it strange that a gentile (Fr. Gentili), a pagan (Fr. Pagani), and a barbarian (Fr. Dominic Barberi) should be sent here by the Pope to bring him back England. It looks odd to read the following passage in the book which records the arrivals and departures:
"On Friday morning, Dec 12, 1845, Mr. Faber, a parson lately converted from the Anglican Establishment arrived here accompanied by two little boys his cousins, named William and James Pitts.
During this year the Fathers gave 20 courses of spiritual exercises, whether in the shape of missions or retreats, viz: Tamworth(people), Bilston (people) - coming here Fr. Domiric lost his habit - St. Nicholas, Liverpool (2775), Summerton (people), Walsall (people), Princethorpe (Nuns), Stone (people), Oscott (clergy), Prior Park(do.), Cobridge (people), Manchester(Pres. nuns), Macclesfield (people), Lane End (people), Congleton (people), Ushaw College (students) - it was the intention of the writer to put a cross upon the map at each place in which a mission or a retreat had been given; but that seems now almost an impossibility, the places being obscure in a great many cases and then repititions being so many.