It is pretty amazing how so many spiritually significant things are coming together at the moment regarding England: the Pope's visit in the Spring, the pilgrimage of the relics of Therese, the Apostolic Constitution, the beatification of Newman, the visit of Jack Sullivan. It does seem that all the stops are being pulled out on earth and in heaven for the conversion of England.
Why does it matter? It's easy to write England off as a spent force, an empty Empire and a morally degraded civilization. What is moving and impressive about Pope Benedict is that he is not giving up on Europe. He's still in the fight. The way England goes is important for the rest of the world because English is the world's language and the influence of the former British Empire--especially in the developing world is still strong. Maybe in cultural and global terms--spiritually speaking--England is the key to a wider conversion that is needed.
I'd love to lead a pilgrimage to holy sites in England, including a Newman tour. Anybody interested?
28 comments:
'It does seem that all the stops are being pulled out on earth and in heaven for the conversion of England'.
Don't forget Smith Wigglesworth's prophecy of 1947!
I know he was a pentecostal but it's still worth reading as it mentions all Christian religions. He had a great gift of healing too!
'I'd love to lead a pilgrimage to holy sites in England, including a Newman tour. Anybody interested'
I am, but I live here already so not sure if I would be eligible?
I'd love to meet you here in Oxford if you come!!
I'm Orthodox and already here but if you come with pilgrims I promise to be there with a welcome banner. I wouldn't be any kind of Christian if not for JHN.
I would love to join your pilgrimage! Please have one --- I'm sure it will be wonderful.
I would love to join your pilgrimage! Please have one --- I'm sure it will be wonderful.
Please yes do and very soon! I'm in Russia currently (American national) and would LOVE to go on pilgrimage.. in fact, I'm hoping I can hit several European spots I might otherwise not be able to afford to get to from the US... I hope it could be an affordable pilgrimage even in the UK- I'm good at penny pinching, even on a teacher's salary. :D
Yes, I would love to go. But what holy sites would you include? Be as comprehensive as you like, since the itinerary can be flexible.
I imagine Our Lady of Walsingham--am I right? What else?
Pilgrimage: I went on such a pilgrimage arranged by Ave Maria University in 2006. Can you imagine having *both* Fr Joseph Fessio and Joseph Pearce as guides? The tour had been set up with an organization called Faith Tours, I think. If you are serious in your plans, I cannot recommend this organization too highly. It was the loveliest week of my life (no, I'm not overstating that). Everything--even the accommodations, food--was over-the-top wonderful. I couldn't afford the full two weeks and had to leave after only one, but that one was life-changing in ways that continue to unfold even now. I know Pearce is a friend of yours, Father, and so I suggest that if you are serious, you might speak to him about that organization.
I will never forget one particular event: a tiny stone church, about 900 years old, in the middle of a sheep pasture in the Lake District. We had Mass there (we had a Mass every day); it was the first time the Blessed Sacrament had been under its roof in 500 years! And the sorrow I felt--literally sorrow, grief--in the Church of St Bede. As superstitious as this may sound, I could feel St Bede's broken heart from a stall in the choir as I heard Fr Fessio's words of consecration. The church was a tourist attraction--as so many are now--and the Church of England caretaker asked Father if he might receive Holy Communion. The answer was a kind and compassionate no.
In 2005, I attended the Tolkien 50-years celebration at Birmingham and visited the Oratory. Over 750 people attended that conference, all avid Tolkien fans. But on Sunday morning only five of us went to Sunday Mass. We went to the Oratory. (The priest who was responsible for the conversion of Tolkien's mother and who had guardianship of him after her death was at the Oratory. Tolkien received catechism there.) Charles Coulombe, a presenter at the conference, was one of the five. He arranged with one of the priests there a short tour of Newman's quarters afterwards. I knelt on Newman's pre dieu in his study.
Looking back, this Sunday morning was the personal beginning of a spiritual and intellectual journey, confirmed by the pilgrimage a year later. I am writing a novel now, set in Elizabethan England. Its title, Red and White, refers on one level to the flag of St George; one another level, it refers to the red and white martyrs of England. We know the names now of many of the red martyrs, but none of the white. They haunt me.
I'm an American studying Theology at Oxford as I prepare for reception into the Catholic Church. I'd love to join you, if I'm able, and possibly help out with planning if you'd like to include a visit to Oxford. We just got our picture of Newman up at the University Chaplaincy, along with a picture of St Thomas More. (Our Jesuit chaplains hold weekday Mass in the Chapel of St Thomas More and Sunday Masses in the Newman Room in the Chaplaincy.)
Don't forget to include York, the home of Saint Margaret Clitherow convert mother and martyr and go to the Knavesmire where several martyrs were hung (a nearby church is dedicated to the English Martyrs). Not to mention York Minster (perhaps we could reclaim it!)
PS York Minster is properly called St Peter's Cathedral and there is an ancient inn called the Cross Keys just behind it (bound to be a vicar or two in there).
As an ex Anglican priest I pray regularly for the return of Britain to the faith.
I almost wept when I toured England and saw the ruins of monasteries - not destroyed by a foreign enemy but deliberately pillaged by Henry's men. I also saw ancient churches that had not had a Catholic Mass in them for many centuries.
The country that once produced so many great saints really needs to return to Rome.
Dear Veritas,
I am still amazed sometimes by the huge, gaping void in my education. I majored in English in college with a focus on British Literature and went on to graduate school with the same emphasis, particularly the romantic poets. Of course, my studies involved gaining a peripheral knowledge of English history.
Even though it's true that I did not become a Catholic until many years later, I look back now--after the pilgrimage--in astonishment at my lack of understanding of English history. What amazes me even more is the lack of self-understanding among the English, discernible in their literature. My lack of understanding is due entirely to their own.
It seems that a huge deception, a monstrous lie, is at the very root of England. The country was cut off from its past, its heritage, its own identity--its heart and soul--that which enables us all to see clearly, an acknowledgement of truth as the supreme value. The lie is a kind of self-inflicted blindness to conceal from themselves the monstrosity of the wound. History is utterly revisionist, selecting this bit or that in self-justification and formalizing the result into a kind of dogma. It is difficult for an outsider to comprehend the kind of insane notion that Anglicans have of themselves as "not Protestant" unless one perceives this self-inflicted mutilation.
It's not unlike the modern phenomenon of abortion, which violates the very core of natural law. There were no sonograms when abortion on demand was made legal. Now, after we have killed 50 million of our own children, we cannot afford to look at the truth. And so we make up this artificial dogma of "rights" and defend it with the passion only possible to those who cling to denial for very life.
In the ruins of an abbey, I was filled with a pity beyond tears. I can't articulate its depth.
I'm glad you pray for your country. I do not have that grace, only the grace of that insight, which is more than sufficient to me, after all.
Dear Estiel,
I am not English, I'm Australian. However, like quite a few Australians, my ancestors (Great Grandparents and before)were all from Britain.
Also I have always respected England's gift to the world of its beautiful langauge and literature, and its concept of Parliamentary democracy.
However, as I said, I was really upset when I visited England, Scotland and Wales and saw the incredible destruction of over 1000 years of Catholic faith.
The ruins of once great monasteries, like Clastonbury, which was once a huge thriving centre of faith, were pitiful to behold. To see a church like Westminster Abbey, where saints are buried, now in the hands of Protestants who "ordain" women, "marry" homosexuals, allow divorce and accept abortion, is so tragic.
Every time I read the story of the appalling treatment meted out to St Thomas More, St John Fisher and Catherine of Aragon, I keep asking how such a deeply Catholic country could have turned so far, so fast, from its faith.
What a warning to all of us! We must not take our faith for granted.
The nature and words of the beautiful music produced by a number of Anglican musicians during the Elizabethan era, showed that they still had strongly Catholic elements of faith left.
Through the Pope's provision that heritage can be brought back into the Church.
I keep praying that one day Britain will return to its Catholic faith.
I'd go if I could, but that isn't likely. It amazes me to think that the summer I spent at Oxford I lived at Trinity, but I had no idea who Ronald Knox was!
Get a load of that lamp, it sure reminds me of the staircases (dorms) at Trinity.
Something big is brewing for England. There's just too much going on, and too many signs, for it not to be. But of course, it may not last. Chesterton, Belloc, Knox, etc., etc., etc. -- all that Catholic genious and fire and love. And now...
Is Smith Wigglesworth a real person? That sounds like a PG Wodehouse name!
Father,
regardless of whether England is a spent force, an empty Empire, and/or a degraded civilization, there is NOTHING beyond God's power to redeem. I pray He will bring about England's conversion, and soon.
I've been praying about leading a pilgrimage from Victoria British Columbia to the Beatification but I need an official date. JHN can you interceed?
Fr. D.L. we talked some time ago and share the path of conversion from Canterbury...
God willing let's have some Canadian pilgrims join you.
Pax Christi,
Fr. DNH
At least one English Catholic would be very interested in such a tour of what remains of the Holy sites in England.
GailF,
Yes Smith Wigglesworth is a real person, although please God he's in heaven now. He was an English Pentecostal minister, he had tremendous faith and there are accounts of people being healed and raised from the dead after he prayed over them. His prophecy is incredibly accurate so far.
I'll sneak it in here, hope Father doesn't mind, he's from good old time religion stock, so he might let me get away with it.Obviously this prophecy does not carry the imprimatur of the Church, but it is quoted in Catholic Charismatic circles. Bear in mind, he gave this prophecy in 1947.
“During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it, and will be characterised by the restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches. In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is a great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival but both are steps towards it.’
When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit.
When the word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years.
The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.”
Hallelujah!!!!!!!!!!
Re. your comment: "I'd love to lead a pilgrimage to holy sites in England, including a Newman tour. Anybody interested?"
I would be VERY interested in such a pilgrimage, Father. My husband and I have already been talking about doing our own pilgrimage next time we visit the UK--perhaps next spring. We will watch your blog for more info....
Interesting comments on the skewing of history and the ignorance of the truth about the Reformation in England. Very true. My eyes were opened by reading William Cobbett's 'Protestant Reformation in England,' written in the 1820s. His view that the Reformation was imposed on a mainly reluctant populace by fanatics, the Tudor power structure and the greed of those keen to get their mitts on the land and property of the monasteries etc is borne out by Eamon Duffy in 'The Stripping of the Altars,' incidentally.
And yes, I'd love to come on a pilgrimage led by Father Dwight, although again, I live here already - perhaps those of us who live in England could 'dip in' as we are able? I'm bound by school terms, too.
I would love to go on one. My mother was born in Martley, WORCES. and my forebears are buriied in the 12th century churchyear there. On our most recent trip back, we visited some sites between Martley and Birmingham where Catholic priests took refuge during the period of suppression of the Faith.
Deacon Ed Peitler
Diocese of Charleston SC
"To see a church like Westminster Abbey, where saints are buried, now in the hands of Protestants who "ordain" women, "marry" homosexuals, allow divorce and accept abortion, is so tragic."
Come on, veritas, let's have a little charitable balance here!
Westminster Abbey is in the hands of the Church of England which, in regard to the ordination of women, is following a reasonable interpretation of Galatians 3.28 (amongst others); does not marry homosexuals; and leaves it to the conscience of the individual which position to adopt on such questions as divorce and abortion.
I do not claim that the Church of England is right on everything - such a position would, of course, be ridiculous for any church to adopt - but nor do I think that it is as wrong about everything as your broad brush-strokes would like to make out.
Veritas may have been somewhat passionate in her language, but according to you flyingvic she was not incorrect.
The Church of England does ordain women, does provide 'blessings' for homosexual couples, and by allowing individuals to 'choose' thereby also allows divorce and abortion.
That Veritas finds this abhorrent only puts her in with the vast majority of Christians in the vast majority of places in the world today and down through the ages.
"Somewhat passionate" meaning "unbalanced"? The Church of England does NOT marry NOR provide blessings for homosexual couples. Where are you coming from on this?
YES!
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