SOME PEOPLE COME OUT OF CURIOSITY, BUT THEY DEPART EDIFIED AND SATISFIED, AND RETURN
It is important to bear in mind why the Founder sent Oblates to the British Isles. He had three motives: 1/ to cooperate with the Catholic revival in England by bringing back to the Catholic Church those who had abandoned her; 2/ to recruit English-speaking vocations to become Oblates; and 3/ to open up missionary activity in the extensive British colonies around the world.
As we continue to read the fund-raising letter of Eugene to the Council of the Propagation of the Faith, some of these goals are seen in the way in which he describes the missionary work of the Oblates in south-eastern England
In an earlier letter Fr. Daly told me:
“Things are going splendidly (at Penzance). It is truly consoling to see our beautiful church full of people every Sunday; almost never less than three of four hundred protestants from different sects come to hear us preach the truths of our Holy Religion. The protestant temples are practically abandoned and our church is always full even when the weather is inclement. Some people come out of curiosity, but they depart edified and satisfied, and return. At present there is an extraordinary tendency towards our Holy Religion. Minds are all astir and seeking the truth with inexpressible eagerness. Easter Sunday was truly a beautiful day for us” (After a detailed description of that day he added), “The Protestants were enchanted by everything they saw and heard and the church was filled with the most respectable persons 2 hours before the evening service. There were at least 500 people in the pews and 250 obliged to remain standing. In the midst of this crowd, almost all protestant, there was always the deepest silence without the slightest confusion. After the sermon and benediction, I baptized an entire family composed of 6 people. I am unable to depict, etc…”
Rereading Fr. Daly’s letter I see that he also speaks about the school they have begun to build. They already had 30 children at that time and counted on receiving a very large number, even Protestants; an additional reason to prompt the Council to grant to this special mission an even larger sum than what was granted last year.
Letter to the Council of the Propagation of the Faith, Lyon, 21 July 1844, EO V n 88.
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This morning I see some of the similarities between the missions that took place in France and those in England. In both countries there is a rebuilding of the Church with one having been decimated by revolutions and in the other having been replaced by a King almost 300 years earlier. The missionaries themselves would have been preaching in the same manner as those who first set out to the towns and villages in Provence. I imagine that many in France also came out of curiosity and found themselves being touched by God as they listened to the words of the missionaries. God using the missionaries as instruments in the same way that Jesus had done with the apostles. These Englishmen and their families had been drawn and touched by the missionaries, their zeal, and the message that they carried.
I think for a moment of John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness. It would seem there is more than one kind of wilderness in life. There is the wilderness of countries like Canada where the people had not yet been touched by Christianity and there was the wilderness of the heart as was found in France and England where people’s hearts were being set on fire and given new life.
Looking back it was not so different from my own experience of the Oblates who were the pastors in my own church. I had become settled and comfortable in my faith and yet still yearned for something more. I was invited and drawn every bit as much as the early apostles were with Jesus, and as these Englishmen were with the Oblates. My faith was being renewed and enlivened. God was rebuilding my heart.
Today I join others who stand in the light as together we share in Eugene’s charism, allowing ourselves to be used as instruments of God and sent out to according to the state of life that God as called us to as missonaries. We are sent to evangelize the poor: the poor are evangelized.