The Possession and management of a Parish entails a multiplicity of duties. Father Bernard was charged with our parochial duties in Broadway. It looked a very hopeless task at first. It was supposed that 40 catholics existed somewhere in the village - indeed 14 of their number presented themselves and told of the others but it was difficult to find them. To bring them to the Church and evangelise them was another thing - to bring outsiders and convert them was still a greater thing. It struck our Superiors that a short road towards evangelical work amongst them lay through the children. The children must be found out first and then schools, and then a schoolmaster and then all the other appliances. This was our first effort in genuine parochial work and it deserves a special record. Fr. Bernard, who seemed to have preserved his childhood in all its freshness even to middle age and past, was chosen for this purpose. He essayed forth in his habit, collected a crowd of children, put them into military order, taught them how to march and sing and gave them some jovial instructions which tended unto holiness. This sort of thing was quite new to the youngsters and they took to it with a great zest.
Fr. Bernard bethought him of building a school and the difficulties which met him did not daunt him. He tried to collect the funds and found it too difficult a matter. He was placed by the generosity of a friend, who first lent him and afterwards bestowed £300 beyond the necessity of sending round the hat. He gathered the neighbours, cleaned the surface, had the foundations dug and then the foundation stone was laid with the usual ceremonies. A sermon was preached on the occasion by a young Dominican Father from Woodchester then unknown to fame, but now the celebrated Father Tom Burke, O.P. The chronicler however remarks that it was a "magnificent sermon". The building grew apace and at the opening of the schools on the 8th September, 1851, Fr. Paul Mary (Pakenham) then a novice, carried the processional cross whilst a recent convert, then preparing for Ordination, refused to say a few words because he was not yet in orders, stood by as one of the spectators. This convert is now His Eminence, H.E. Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster.
In this same month of September (the 4th), Fr. Ignatius Spencer set out for Rome on a twofold mission, to have his scheme of associating people in prayer for the Conversion of England authorized and to quest through portions of the continent in order to provide funds for carrying on the works contemplated for the place at the Hyde. A portion of the house and immense foundations were completed about Christmas 1851 and the works were soon afterwards suspended because of untoward events.
On the 22nd August of this year, Fr. Vincent (Grotti) with Frs. Martin and Ambrose commenced a mission in Birr or Parsonstown, King's County. We had been giving missions for some eight or nine years in England and Scotland and one was given in Dublin also; but this of Birr was the first real Irish mission. A mission in the country in Ireland means the crowding in of the inhabitants of five or six parishes.
Seven, ten, twenty and thirty miles are but a small matter to the poor souls who thirst for the spiritual comfort of a mission. Accustomed from time immemorial, to pray the Stations at the shrines of Saints or in places hallowed by their memories and to go distances of 40 miles on foot living on meagre fare, fasting and praying like ancient hermits, the Irish people were prepared for the blessing of a
mission in a way peculiar to themselves. To see the crowds of people coming in by every road, some on foot, some poorly mounted, carts bearing their crowds of women and children to whom a sheaf of straw by way of cushion would seem a luxury, cars and vehicles of every description was a glorious thing. But then, the piety and devotion of the creatures. What could three or, for the matter of that, ten missioners do among so many, all had to be heard and although the neighbouring priests lent their aid it would be
impossible to attend to all. Some waited fasting until 10 and 11 o'clock at night and that for three or four days before they could get heard and then jogged home with a light heart - if old, feeling prepared for death - if young, feeling prepared to weather the storms and bear the crosses of life with vigour and earnestness. Such is an idea of an Irish mission. The words of the preacher find but too deep a response in the sighs, then tears and the wails of sorrow which go forth from that repenting multitude. Old missioners who have spent thirty and more years in the same work cannot help feeling the emotion of the people reacting upon themselves as the deep roots of an unperishable faith spring at once into such glorious flowers and fruits of goodness and holiness. Morning, noon and night and the most spacious churches thronged and on the day in which the mission closes, we have to adjourn to some spacious field or erect a platform in the marketplace so that the terns or twenties of thousands may hear the last sermon of the mission and receive the Papal Blessing. A vast multitude stretching away as far as the eye can see and further than voice can reach in one grand emotion of prayer and thanks, each with a lighted candle in the hand and repeating after the missioner the renewal of their baptismal vows, is a scene that must be witnessed for it is impossible to describe. There is but one thought in each breast at that moment: I have been renewed in spirit, I have given up a life of sin or carelessness, I have turned to my God, I have made peace with my enemies, I have restored the illgotten goods I possessed, I have broken away from my various bad habits - it was a difficult thing but God
gave me grace to do it - oh if I could only continue as I am now until the day of my death. And the tears roll down and the voice is lifted up and the brawny frame of the strong man trembles as his lips send forth the thrilling words which are written down by the recording angel. The crowds then slowly disperse, after having kissed the mission cross and go to their near and distant homes rejoicing at the spiritual blessings they have been sharers of and sorrowing because they have an end. In Ireland it is not as it is in France or Italy. There the people have to be invited, exhorted and perhaps only half a dozen men will approach the sacraments.
There is a certain mutual satisfaction between the missionaries and the people. The former feel that they are doing a work very acceptable to heaven and the latter feel that the instruments of such blessings are far holier and better than they are in reality. Years afterwards in a London hospital, in the crowded church of New York, or Sidney, in the back woods of America, the burning shores of India or Africa or perhaps the crowded vessel or home of misery will the missioner hear the voice of a poor exile of Erin blessing the day he knelt at his feet in the parish church where he first heard Mass and last partook of the bread of life before he left his native shore never to return to it. Various incidents like the above and others which never can be published give the missionary priests a place in affections of the Irish people unique of its kind in the manifold mansions of gratitude which are to be found in the catholic church. Missions like that of Birr have been given in every diocese and nearly in every parish in Ireland within the last thirty years. The same work has been carried on elsewhere. One may say why are the Irish people so discontented? Missionaries never touch on politics but they sympathise with a suffering people and they would stay their hands from violating the commandments if their rulers only stayed theirs from extorting their livelihood under the aegis of unjust and iniquitous laws.
Invite a man to dinner when you have only poison to give him - ask him to be patient whilst you torture his children to death - ask him to bless you when you send him away from the home of his fathers to seek a wretched livelihood or a grave in some distant country - ask him to be humble and charitable when he is ground to poverty and rags in order that a bloated wretch, his alien in blood, in sympathy and religion, may wallow in luxury and vice in the gilded saloons of a debauched city - ask a man to do these things when he is instructed by the newspaper and the demagogue and you ask an impossibility. Let justice be done and let fairplay be given to the Irish peasant and no more grateful or law abiding citizen ever adorned any nation. See him in America or Canada? He never is seen arrayed against any law or order there except the laws of England which banished him. Every Irish emigrant is destined to be the parent of rebels who suck in hatred of England at their mother's breasts and brandish their tiny arms in imaginary revenge as the father recites his tale of misery or some episode of the sad history of his country at his winter fireside in the prairie or in the bush. Emigration will not benefit the country. The sad wails one hears at Railway stations in the West and South of Ireland as the youth and strength of the country are parting with their aged parents and sickly relatives, will not die upon that rugged breeze which sweeps the smoke of the engine over the fields. No, it will live until it be turned into joy. It is very painful to see the young men and young women, awkward in their new finery, as they come to the missioner to get his blessing for their voyage to America or Australia. The very best of people have been leaving Ireland for the last 34 years and another Ireland has grown up in distant countries.
Besides the mission in Birr, missions were given in Derby, Mulbery Street, Manchester and Woolwich.
It was during this year that Fr. Gaudentius bethought him of providing homes for the poor factory girls in Lancashire. Many innocent girls, driven from Ireland by famine and hardship, had to seek a livelihood among the looms and spinning jennies of Lancashire and often lost their native innocence through
the companionship of those amongst whom their lot was cast. After a time the new work took a permanent form. A few ladies began to live together in community, Rules were drawn up for them, their sphere of activity was widened, they took the name of Sisters of the Holy Family and in course of time became aggregated to us altho' subject to the bishop of the diocese under the name of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion.