A Peculiar Mission.
Father Ignatius had an idea in his mind for a number of years, and saw
no practical way in which it might be realized. He looked forward,
with a pleasing anticipation, to the prospect of going about from
parish to parish on a kind of itinerary mission. The thing was unusual
in our day, and he saw no plea by which it could be justified to
others, or he should have gone on it long before. He proposed it at
last to his Superiors, and the circumstances of his position
wonderfully favoured its prosecution.
Voluntary poverty was raised to a virtue by the example and teaching
of our Divine Lord, and poverty must always have a counterpart. To be
poor is to be dependent, and want is ordained for the sanctification
of plenty. When our Divine Master said that it was difficult for the
rich man to be saved, He subjoined that with God all things are
possible. The miseries of the poor are the channels through which
riches can flow into Heaven, and make friends to their possessors of
the mammon of iniquity.
In the dispensation of Providence, the Church watches over the
interests of all her children, and whilst she proclaims the severity
of the Gospel maxims, she provides for their observance. She must
preach poverty of spirit, from the text of the sermon on the Mount,
and she manages to make kings who are richer than David live after
God's own heart. The beautiful harmony between rank and lowliness,
authority and submission, prosperity and adversity, has long ago been
arranged by the practice of the ages of faith, and by the Pontifical
constitutions which impress the seal of the Fisherman upon the usages
of Catholicity.
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In no department of Catholic polity is this superior wisdom so well
exemplified as in the rules of mendicant orders. The Church takes the
noble from his seat of power, she makes him cast his coronet at the
feet of Peter, and stretch out his hand to his former vassal for the
paltry morsel that is to sustain his future existence. She forbids him
to accumulate; she makes him give back a thousand-fold what he
receives. By thus bringing down the pride of power and making it pay
court to the discontented child of penury, she reconciles man with
Providence and suffuses reverence through the crowd, who might grumble
at greatness, by making their lord according to the world their
servant according to the Gospel.
The constitutions of the Congregation of the Passion are framed upon
the spirit of the Church. If a man of property joins our poor
institute, he cannot bring his possessions with him to enrich the
community he enters; for Blessed Paul has not allowed them to have any
fixed revenue. He may, indeed, give a donation towards the building of
their church, the furnishing of their poor schools, or the paying off
the debts they were obliged to contract to secure the ground upon
which their monastery is built; but that is left to his own charity.
He is supposed by our rule to hand over his property to a relative or
a charitable institution, and reserve to himself the right to take it
back, in case he may not persevere in his vocation, or abandon the
life he has embraced.
Thus deprived of stable funds, we are to rely upon the Providence of
God; and we can give Him glory by confessing that we never yet found
His word to fail, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice,
and all these things shall be added unto you." Betimes we may have to
send a brother to ask for some assistance from kind benefactors; but,
as a rule, God inspires many to befriend us without our asking. The
duties of missions and retreats, and the preparation for them, prevent
us from digging a livelihood out of the earth; but the sweat of our
brow that is thus spent earns our bread by procuring us friends.
People crowd to our churches, and leave thank-offerings there to prove
the reality of their devotion; and, as an ancient {370} father of ours
once said, "our support comes in through the choir-windows."
When we have to build a church or a house, we must follow the custom
of surrounding priests; but, as our working is not purely local, we
send a father or brother to distant countries, and try not to be too
burthensome to our neighbours. Charity endureth all things; but the
branch of charity which is exercised in the giving of alms is not
always content to be too much importuned, or called upon too often.
Charity therefore requires that those who plead for the exercise of
one arm do not strain the other, and it makes provision against
provoking anger or ill-feeling from the weaknesses it tries to cure by
stirring to activity.
In the year 1848 the fathers at Aston Hall stood in sore need of a
church. Hitherto they had turned a room upstairs into a temporary
chapel; and, inconvenient as it might be to have people going so far
into a religious house, they would have borne up longer, had not a
builder told them that anything like a crowd would bring the whole
place down about their ears. Father Ignatius mentions this in a letter
he wrote to Mrs. Canning. "It will," he says, "be a great addition to
us to have a respectable church, instead of our chapel up-stairs; but
we should not have had a plea for asking for it, if this chapel had
not been so good as to give us notice to quit, by becoming cracky a
little."
Here, then, was an opportunity. Some one should go out and beg. Father
Ignatius was commissioned to write letters, but though the first was
answered by a cheque for £100, with a promise of more, there was not
enough forthcoming to enable them to build. Could he not do two things
at once? Could he not ask for prayers as well as alms? Did not the
very plea of begging give him a right to go to different places, even
from parish to parish, and speak publicly and privately? It did. And
he was forthwith sent out to carry into execution the dreams of half a
life, which he scarcely ever expected to realize. He first began this
peculiar mission of his by going through the towns with a guide, like
ordinary questers: in a few years the plan developed itself into the
"little missions."
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His first begging tour was through Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham,
Oscott, Leamington, and Wolverhampton. In a few months he sallies
forth again, and Liverpool is the theatre of his labours. Many and
rude were the trials he had to endure in this humiliating work. He
thus playfully alludes to some of them:
"I am on a begging mission here at Liverpool, in which I find rough
and smooth, ups and downs, every day. The general result is very
fair. I have been here since Monday, the 8th of May" (he writes on
the 20th), "and have got more than £100, but with hard walking. I
am, however, quite well, and the inflammation of my eye quite
gone--nothing left but a little haziness. It lasted five weeks
without relenting at all. If it had gone on, I must have stayed at
home; but it just began to improve before I started, and has got
well, _tout en marchant_. My present life is very pleasant when
money comes kindly; but when I get refused, or walk a long way and
find every one out, it is a bit mortifying. That is best gain for
me, I suppose, though not what I am travelling for. .... I should
not have had the time this morning to write to you, had it not been
for a disappointment in meeting a young man, who was to have been my
begging-guide for part of the day; and so I had to come home, and
stay till it is time to go and try my fortune in the enormous
market-house, where there are innumerable stalls with poultry, eggs,
fruit, meat, &c., kept in great part by Irish men and women, on whom
I have to-day, presently, to go and dance attendance, as this is the
great market-day. I feel, when going out for a job like this, as a
poor child going in a bathing machine to be dipped in the sea,
_frisonnant_; but the Irish are so good-natured and generous that
they generally make the work among them full of pleasure, when once
I am in it."
One sees a vast difference between begging of the rich and of the
poor. If the latter have nothing to give, they will at least show a
kind face, and will not presume to question the priest about his
business; whereas some of the former, because they have something
which they will not give, either absent themselves or treat the priest
unkindly for {372} asking. For what? Because he begs. It is not for
himself: he even retrenches necessaries from his own table in order to
spare something for the house of God. And what, after all, does he
ask? The price of an hour's recreation, or an extra ornament, that may
be very well spared. That is all. The priest wants people to look
after their own interests, to send their money before them to heaven,
instead of wasting it on vanity or sin. And because he does this, and
humbles himself for the sake of his God, he must be made to feel it.
Father Ignatius was keenly alive to this, and the way he felt for
those who forgot themselves by sending him away empty was far more
afflictive than the personal humiliation. He could thank God for the
latter, but he could not do so for the former.
Once he was fiercely abused, when begging, and as the reviler had come
to a full stop in his froward speech, Father Ignatius quietly
retorted: "Well, as you have been so generous to myself personally,
perhaps you would be so kind as to give me something now for my
community." This had a remarkable effect. It procured him a handsome
offering then, as well as many others ever since.
Another day he knocked at a door, and was admitted by a very
sumptuously attired footman. Father Ignatius told the servant the
object of his visit, his religious name, and asked if he could see the
lady or gentleman of the house. The servant strode off to see, and in
a few seconds returned to say that the gentleman was out, and the lady
was engaged and could not see him, neither could she afford to help
him. He then remarked that perhaps she was not aware that he was the
Honourable Mr. Spencer. The servant looked at him, bowed politely and
retired. In a minute or two Father Ignatius hears a rustling of silks
and a tripping of quick steps on the stairs. In came my lady, and what
with blushings and bowings, and excuses and apologies, she scarcely
knew where she was until she found herself and him tête-à-tête. She
really did not know it was he, and there were so many impostors. "But
what will you take, my dear sir?" and before he could say yea or nay
she rung for his friend the footman. Father Ignatius coolly said, that
he did not {373} then stand in need of anything to eat, and that he
never took wine; but that he did stand in need of money for a good
purpose, and if she could give him anything in that way he should be
very glad to accept it. She handed him a five-pound note at once,
expressing many regrets that something or other prevented its being
more. Father Ignatius took the note, folded it carefully, made sure of
its being safely lodged in his pocket, and then made thanksgiving in
something like the following words: "Now, I am very sorry to have to
tell you that the alms you have given me will do you very little good.
If I had not been born of a noble family, you would have turned me
away with coldness and contempt. I take the money, because it will be
as useful to me as if it were given with a good motive; but I would
advise you, for the future, if you have any regard for your soul, to
let the love of God, and not human respect, prompt your alms-giving."
So saying, he took his hat and bid his benefactress a good morning.
Many were the anecdotes he told us about his begging adventures; but
it is next to impossible to remember them. In every case, however, we
could see the saint through the veil his humility tried to cast over
himself. Whether he was received well or ill, he always tried to turn
his reception to the spiritual benefit of those who received him. He
made more friends than any person living, perhaps, and never was known
to make an enemy; his very simplicity and holiness disarmed malice. He
says, in a letter, upon getting his first commission to go and quest:
"I am to be a great beggar!" His prognostication began to be verified.
Strange fact, the Honourable George Spencer a beggar! And happier,
under all the trials and crosses incident to such a life, than if he
had lived in the luxury of Althorp. Religion is carrying out to-day
what its Founder began eighteen hundred years ago. He left the kingdom
of heaven to live on the charity of His own creatures.
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