CHAPTER I.

The Noviciate.

Religious orders in the Church may be compared to a vast army, composed of different regiments, with different uniforms, different tactics, and different posts in the kingdom of God, offensive and defensive, against the kingdom of Satan. The Pope is the head of all, and various generals bear rule, in his name, over the forces who have chosen them for their leaders.

Some religious orders fill chairs in universities; others are charged with the instruction of youth. Some watch by the sickbed; others ransom captive slaves, or bring consolation to the miserable in prisons and asylums. Some, again, work at the rooting out of sin and disorders at home, whilst others carry the light of the Gospel to the heathen. Some pitch their tents in deserts or mountain fastnesses, whilst a more numerous body take up their abode in the abandoned purlieus of crowded cities.

Every religious order has some one characteristic spirit, a mark by which it may be distinguished from the others. This may be called the genius of the order. It is mostly the spirit that animated the founder when he gathered his first companions around him, and drew up the code by which {352} their lives were to be regulated. This spirit may be suited to one age and not to another; it may be local or universal; on its scope depends the existence and spread of the order; its decay or unsuitableness will portend the extinction of the body it animated.

This spirit may take in the whole battle-field of religion, and then we see members of that order in every post in which an advantage may be gained, or a blow dealt upon the enemy. It may take in some parts and leave the rest to the different battalions that are already in charge, prepared to render assistance in any department as soon as its services may be needed.

The religious order known as the Congregation of the Passion has a peculiar spirit and a special work. It was founded by Blessed Paul of the Cross in the middle of the last century, and approved by Benedict XIV., Clement XIV., and Pius VI. Its object is to work in whatever portion of the Church it may have a house established, for the uprooting of sin, and the planting of virtue in the hearts of the faithful. The means it brings to this, in addition to the usual ones of preaching and hearing confessions, is a spreading among Christians a devotion to and a grateful, lively remembrance of the Passion of our Lord. The Passionists carry out this work by missions and retreats, as well as parish work in their own houses. If circumstances need it, they take charge of a parish; if not, they do the work of missioners in their own churches. They teach none except their own younger members, and they go on foreign missions when sent by His Holiness or the Propaganda.

To keep the members of an order always ready for their out-door work, there are certain rules for their interior life which may be likened to the drill or parade of soldiers in their quarters. This discipline varies according to the spirit of each order.

The idea of a Passionist's work will lead us to expect what his discipline must be. The spirit of a Passionist is a spirit of atonement; he says, with St. Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh for His body, which is the {353} Church." Coloss. i. 24. For this cause, the interior life of a Passionist is rather austere. He has to rise shortly after midnight, from a bed of straw, to chaunt matins and lauds, and spend some time in meditation. He has two hours more meditation during the day, and altogether about five hours of choir-work in the twenty-four. He fasts and abstains from flesh meat three days in the week, all the year round, besides Lent and Advent. He is clad in a coarse black garment; wears sandals instead of shoes; and practises other acts of penance of minor importance.

This seems rather a hard life; but an ordinary constitution does not find the least difficulty in complying with the letter of the rule. It is withal a happy, cheerful life; for it seems the nature of penance to make the heart of the penitent light and gladsome, "rejoicing in suffering." Two facts are proved by experience. First, that scarcely one ever left the order on account of the corporal austerities, though they are used as a plea to justify the step by those who lose the religious spirit. Secondly, longevity is more common amongst us than any other order, except perhaps the Cistercians, whose rule is far more severe than ours. A Passionist is bound by this rule only within the retreat, as houses of the order are called; outside, he follows the Gospel ordinance of partaking of what is set before him, and suiting himself to the circumstances in which he is placed. The Superior, moreover, has a discretionary power of granting exemptions, in favour of those who require some indulgence in consequence of illness or extra labour.

It will be seen, from this sketch, that Passionists have to lay up a stock of virtue, by a monastic life at home, in order that their ministrations for their neighbour may be attended with more abundant fruit. They unite the active and contemplative spirit, that both may help to the saving of their own souls by qualifying them better for aiding in the salvation of others.

This was the kind of life Father Spencer began to lead on his forty-seventh birthday. For a man of his age, with habits formed, with health subject to occasional shocks, it was certainly a formidable undertaking. There was little of {354} human glory to eclipse those difficulties in the community he entered. Four foreign fathers, living in a wretched house, as yet unable to speak passable English, without a church, without friends, without funds, without influence, formed the principal portion of the community of Aston Hall. These were, Father Dominic, Father Gaudentius, Father Constantine, and Father Vincent. None of these four fathers are in the province at present. Fathers Dominic and Constantine are dead. Father Gaudentius is a member of the American province; and Father Vincent, after many years of zealous missionary work in these countries, was called to Rome, where he now holds the office of Procurator-General. They had one student, two lay brothers, and Father Spencer was to be the second of two novices. The Passionists had already been four years in England, and, through trials and difficulties, from poverty and misunderstandings, had worked their way up to the precarious position in which he found them. He was, therefore, a great acquisition to the struggling community. True, he brought no earthly riches; but he brought what was more valued, an unearthly spirit--he brought humility, docility, and burning zeal.

The fathers knew him for a long time, and scarcely required proofs to convince them of his having a religious vocation, since he had practised the vows before then in a very perfect way, considering his state. He gave clear proofs of his spirit on the eve of his coming to Aston. He came, as he glories in telling Mr. Phillipps, _in formâ pauperis_. Some of his friends wished to give him the price of his habit by way of alms; he would not accept of it. He then reflected on the poverty of the Passionists, and thought it would be well if he brought even so much, whereupon he proposed to beg the money. The largest alms he intended to receive was half-a-crown. He was forbidden to do this by his director, and obeyed at once: thus giving a proof of his spirit of poverty and obedience.

Notwithstanding all this, the fathers were determined to judge for themselves, and try by experiment if any aristocratic _hauteur_ might yet lurk in the corners of his {355} disposition. Our rule, moreover, requires that postulants be tried by humiliations before being admitted to the habit; and many and various are the tests applied, depending, as they do, on the judgment of the master of novices. One clause of the rule was especially applicable to Father Spencer: "_Qui nobili ortus est genere, accuratiore et diuturniore experimento probetur_; "and the strict Father Constantine, who was then the master, resolved that not a word of it should be unfulfilled. A day or two after his arrival, he was ordered to wash down an old, rusty flight of stairs. He tucked up his sleeves and fell to, using his brush, tub, and soapsuds with as much zest and good will as if he had been just hired as a maid-of-all-work. Of course, he was no great adept at this kind of employment, and probably his want of skill drew down some sharp rebukes from his overseer. Some tender-hearted religious never could forget the sight of this venerable ecclesiastic trying to scour the crevices and crannies to the satisfaction of his new master. He got through it well, and took the corrections so beautifully, that in a few days he was voted to the habit.

On the afternoon of the 5th January, 1847, vespers are just concluded, and the bell is rung for another function. People are hurrying up to the little chapel, and whispering to each other about the scene they are going to witness. The altar is prepared as for a feast. The thurifers and acolytes head the procession from the sacristy; next follow the religious; then Father Dominic arrayed in surplice and cope. After him follows Father Spencer, in the costume of a secular priest. He kneels on the altar step; he has laid aside long before all that the world could give him; he has thrown its greatness and its folly away as vanities to be despised, and now asks for the penitential garb of the sons of the Passion, with all its concomitant hardships. He had not yet experienced the happiness it brings: he had only begun to earn it by broken rest, fasts, and humiliations. Father Dominic blesses the habit, mantle, and cincture; he addresses a few touching words to the postulant, and prepares to vest him. In the presence of all he takes off the cassock, the habit is put on and bound with a leathern {356} girdle, a cross is placed upon his shoulder, a crown of thorns on his head, benedictions are invoked upon him according to the ritual, the religious intone the _Ecce quam bonum_, Our Lord gives His blessing from the Monstrance, and the Honourable and Reverend-George Spencer is greeted as a brother and companion by Father Dominic, under the new name of Father Ignatius of St. Paul. Thus ended the function of that day, and the benisons of the rite were not pronounced in vain.

It is the custom with us to drop the family name on our reception, to signify the cutting away of all carnal ties, except inasmuch as they may help to benefit souls. A religious should be dead to nature, and his relationship henceforth is with the saints. This is why, among many religious orders of men, and nearly all of women, some saint or some mystery of religion to which the novice is specially devoted is substituted instead of the family name. In most cases, also, the Christian name is changed; this, following the example of our Lord, who changed the names of some of the Apostles, is useful in many ways, as well to typify newness of life as to help in distinguishing one from another when the aid of family names is taken away. Father Ignatius gave his reasons above for preferring this name, and events, both before and after, make us applaud the fitness of the choice.

A novice's life is a very eventless one; it has little in it of importance to others, though it is of so much consequence to himself. The coming of a postulant, the going away of a newly-made brother, the mistakes of a tyro at bell-ringing, chanting, or ceremonies, are of interest enough to occupy several recreations. The absence of soul-stirring news from without gives these trifles room to swell into importance. When the little incidents are invested with ludicrous or peculiar circumstances, they often have a sheet of the chronicles dedicated to their history by the most witty or least busy of the novices.

A postulant ran away the day after Father Ignatius was clothed; he heard the religious take the discipline, and no amount of explanations or coaxing could induce him to {357} accustom his ear to the noise, much less his body to the stripes, of this function. The senior novice left at the same time; he was a priest, and died on the London mission the very same year as Father Ignatius. In a few days more Father Dominic caught a novice dressing his hair and giving himself airs before a looking-glass. His habit was stripped off, and he was sent to the outer world, where, perhaps, the adorning of his good looks was of more service to him than it was at Aston Hall.

It is a received tradition in the religious life that vocations which are not tried by difficulties seldom prove sea-worthy, so to speak. Before or after the novice enters, he must be opposed and disappointed in some way; he has to pay dear for the favour of serving God in this state of life, if he be destined to act any important part in the Church as a religious. Father Ignatius had his trials. He found it difficult to pick up all the _minutiae_ of novice discipline: he suffered a little from homesickness, and these, joined to chilled feet, a hard bed, and meagre food, did not allow him to enjoy to any great extent the delightful sensation known as _fervor novitiorum_. He got over all this, as we see from a letter he wrote to a friend in March:--

"I am here in a state in which not a shadow of trouble seems to come, but what I cause for myself. With a little humility there is peace enough. I suppose I shall have some more troubles hereafter if I live. I have not been so well for several years. Some would have thought a Lent without a bit of meat would not have done for me; but I have seen now since Shrove Tuesday, and, in Lent or out of it, I never have been better. So in that respect, viz., my health, I suppose my trial here is satisfactory."

A rude shock was in store for his health which he little anticipated when he wrote those lines. This was the terrible year of famine in Ireland, that year which will be remembered for ever by those who lived in the midst of the harrowing scenes that overspread that unhappy country. Poor famishing creatures, who had laid their fathers or mothers, and perhaps their children, in coffinless graves, begged their way to England, and began that tide of {358} emigration which has since peopled Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London, with such crowds of Catholics. Every ship brought its cargo of misery, and the hapless victims were forced by their poverty to seek for lodgings in dens of vice, or employment where virtue was not paramount. They thus imbibed a poison to their morals which has not yet been completely purged out of the thousands who have had to follow the footsteps of their famine-stricken predecessors. Numbers of the poor Irish gathered around Stone and Aston; fever broke out amongst them, and the wards of the workhouse infirmaries were unable to contain even a moiety of the sufferers. Every hovel and barn had their burning occupants, and even charity itself seemed frightened from giving assistance. The priest was, of course, busy; and, fortunately for Aston, more than one priest could be had to attend the dying.

All our fathers were at the bed of death many times in the day. Father Gaudentius was struck down with fever, Father Vincent followed next. The duties now devolved upon Father Dominic and Father Ignatius. The poor novice was prostrated by the pestilence, after administering the last rites of the Church to many. He gets a very malignant attack, and in a few days is at the point of death. He prepared for his last passage with the most beautiful dispositions. He thanked God for the privilege of his state, and was particularly delighted at the prospect of dying a martyr to his charity. He receives the Viaticum and Extreme Unction, makes his profession as on death-bed, becomes insensible, and is given an hour to live by the doctors. The religious commence a novena, in which they are joined by the people, for his recovery. God preserved him to his brethren and their flock, for he began immediately to mend. We may form an idea of this poor community, all the active members, except Father Dominic, dying, or in feeble convalescence; their resources, perhaps, run out; and all the energy they had left taxed to its utmost to answer the calls of duty. Few as they were, they had not the least idea of sparing themselves. They still hoped to increase and multiply; but, after the example {359} of Him who increased by dying, and likened the progress of His Church to the dying of the grain of corn in the soil of its growth.

Charitable friends came to their assistance, and amongst the rest, Earl Spencer sent a handsome sum to pay doctors' expenses for his brother. This was considerate, indeed, and as soon as Father Ignatius could manage a pen, he wrote to thank him for his charity. Numbers were deeply concerned for our novice, and two or three Catholic nobles invited him to come and stay with them during his convalescence. Father Dominic did not think him sufficiently ill to warrant his sleeping out of the house, so their kind offers were thankfully declined.

This illness was a double blow to Father Ignatius: he had just received orders from his Superior to prepare for the missions when it came on. An end was put to his preparation for the time, but he resumed the task as soon as the doctors allowed him.

During his noviciate he had two kinds of trials to endure, besides those mentioned already. Father Constantine was remarkable for his meekness and charity; but he put on extra severity for Father Ignatius. His companions tried to show him some marks of distinction, and would offer to relieve him from works that were humiliating, or likely to be galling to one of his standing. The latter trial he complained of, and he was troubled at the other because some of of the religious complained of the novice-master's severity towards him. He had some more mortifications of the kind he playfully told us a few chapters back, as affecting Father Dominic in Oscott. He was troubled with chilblains, and was obliged, in consequence, to wear shoes and stockings for a great part of his noviciate. This he looked upon as a great grievance, inasmuch as he could not live like the others. When at last the chilblains got well, and he was allowed to put on the sandals, he felt overjoyed, and even writes a letter to congratulate himself on his happiness.

He writes two or three letters, in which he notes his astonishment at the Irish being so negligent in England, who had been so regular at home. He says, they all send {360} for the priest, and show great signs of repentance when dying; but, out of a number he attended, only one returned to the Church after recovery. "Still," he says, "it would be long till one of them would answer as the English pensioner is reported to have done on his death-bed. The minister talked much about Heaven and its happiness, but the patient coolly replied, 'It's all very well, sir; but old England and King George for me!'"

His noviciate glides quietly on to its end; and except his ordinary work of attending to a mission in Stone besides his home duties, nothing occurs to break the monotony.

At length, on the 6th of January, 1848, Father Ignatius and Father Dominic remain up after matins. We are told in the Journal, that the novice made his confession and had a long conference with his director, in preparation for the great event of his profession. Father Dominic was going off that day, but the conveyance disappointed him, he was obliged to wait till the next. That evening Father Ignatius is once more in the midst of a moving ceremony: on his knees, with his hands placed in Father Dominic's he pronounces his irrevocable consecration by the vows of his religious profession.[Footnote 10] The badges are affixed to his breast, the sacrifice is completed--and well and worthily was it carried out. It is easier to imagine than to describe the joy of the two holy friends, so long united in the bonds of heavenly charity, as they spoke that day about their first acquaintance, and wondered at the dispositions of Providence, which now made them more than brothers.

[Footnote 10: The profession on death-bed is conditional, so that if a novice recovers, after thus pronouncing his vows, he has to go on as if they had not been made.]

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