The Conversion of England
Each Sunday at Benediction, just before the Salve Regina, the Fathers and Brothers process to the Lady Chapel and pray Cardinal Wiseman’s prayer to Our Lady for England. We pray that Our Mother might intercede for England, her Dowry, and for the all souls in this land, that every single one should be “united to the Chief Shepherd, the vicar of her Son”. Other prayers appointed for Benediction each month recall how this land was once an island of saints and remind us of the great heritage of sanctity left to us by our forebears in this country who “delivered to us inviolate the faith of the Holy Roman Church”. The feasts and memory of our glorious martyrs continue to encourage us to work and to pray for the return of England to the Catholic Faith. All these devotions arise not from misplaced nationalism, but of real patriotism and charity — we love this country and are commanded to love everyone in it, and so must desire that every single soul is able to glory in the Truth and to know, love, and serve, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Heaven has seen fit to encourage us to pray for the conversion of England through the lives and examples of so many saints — often those who had never even set foot on the shores of this land. Our own beloved Father, Saint Philip, would greet the seminarians of the English College as they set out to return to the English mission, facing the chance of martyrdom and always of great hardship, with the phrase Salvete flores martyrum — “Hail, flowers of the martyrs” — and no doubt prayed for their success in their apostolic labours. Our Blessed Juvenal Ancina once met a very poorly dressed English priest at Naples who had fled from the Elizabethan persecutions and was so moved by charity that he gave his own cassock to the priest who cried in gratitude “Father Juvenal is a saint; he has stripped himself to save me”. The love of our Cardinal, St John Henry Newman, for his country and his desire that all should enter into the one fold of the Redeemer is a love he bequeathed to all the English Oratory and which encourages us in our work to this day.
The Passionist Congregation seems especially to have been chosen by God to work for England’s conversion. St Paul of the Cross was inspired to pray for our conversion by a series of mystical events and towards the end of his life was consoled during Mass by a vision of his religious working in this country. Perhaps then he saw Blessed Dominic Barberi whom heaven also inspired to pray for England and then to work here tirelessly until his death — how we treasure the scene of a rain-soaked Blessed Dominic drying himself by the fire of the College at Littlemore when Newman approached him and asked to be received into the Catholic Church. Another Passionist, Fr Ignatius Spencer, spent his Catholic life travelling the length and breadth of this country and of Europe soliciting prayers for the conversion of England and until the last century in every Passionist house throughout the world three Hail Marys were prayed each day after Compline for the conversion of England.
In the life of little Saint Dominic Savio we also see heaven’s interest in England’s conversion. His director, St John Bosco tells how St Dominic related to him that “one morning, during my thanksgiving after Communion, I had a repeated distraction, which was strange for me. I thought I saw a great stretch of country enveloped in a thick mist and it was filled with a multitude of people. They were moving about, but like men who, having missed their way, are not sure of their footing. Someone nearby me said: ‘This is England.’ I was going to ask some questions about it when I saw his Holiness Pius IX as I had seen him represented in pictures. He was majestically clad, and was carrying a shining torch with which he approached the multitude as if to enlighten their darkness. As he drew near, the light of the torch seemed to disperse the mist, and the people were left in broad daylight. ‘This torch,’ said my informant, “is the Catholic religion which is to illuminate England.’”
At La Salette in 1846 Our Lady stated that “A great country, now Protestant, in the north of Europe, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted.” This has generally been taken to refer to England and indeed it was his devotion to La Salette that inspired the Curé d’Ars, St Jean Marie Vianney, to urge others to pray for England’s conversion. The holy Curé once received Archbishop William Ullathorne of Birmingham who urged him to pray for English Catholics amidst their sufferings. Ullathorne relates how then “Suddenly he interrupted me by opening those eyes — cast into shadow by their depth, when listening or reflecting — and streaming their full light upon me in a manner I can never forget, he said, in a voice as firm and full of confidence as though he were making an act of faith… ‘I believe that the Church in England will recover her ancient splendour.’ I am sure he firmly believes this, from whatever source he has derived the impression.”
The above are but a few examples that inspire us and encourage us to love our neighbours by praying and working for the salvation of their souls. In the Oratory we are reminded by St Philip that “the true servant of God acknowledges no other country but heaven” and that is why we pray and work for the conversion of England, one heart, one soul, at a time — so that we all may one day meet merrily there.