Ignatius of St. Paul

“ No sooner had Father Ignatius entered the Church than he put himself with all simplicity and obedience under the guidance of the venerable prelate, my predecessor, Bishop Walsh, who sent him to Rome, there to enter on a course of ecclesiastical studies. In 1830, there we find him in the holy city, imbibing that Apostolic light, and bending himself over the written laws of that truth which was to fit him, not only for the priesthood, but also for a singular call and an unprecedented vocation. ”

“ Who that remembers those days does not recall the amenities of a character of humanity so gentle and true, that even in the midst of the most intense political strife he embittered no one, and drew on him no personal attack. By his noble relatives, Father Ignatius was received with the old affection, and their entire conduct towards him was an exception indeed to the treatment which so many members of other families have experienced in reward for their fidelity to God and to their conscience. ”

“ Some of their worldly affairs became, therefore, complicated, and Father Ignatius, unfortunately, was not the man to rectify matters and put them straight. He was a sage in spirituals, but the very reverse in temporals.
Many of the religious became disheartened at the prospect. Some lost their vocations. Many fought manfully with contending difficulties, weathered all the storms, and, tempered and taught by those days of trouble, look with smiling placidity on what we should think serious crosses in these days. ”

“ The Holy Father knows no fear of man.
I am, your obedient servant,
Ignatius Of St. Paul, Passionist.
The joyous way in which he received crosses and mortifications may be seen from this letter. It seemed as if nothing could ruffle his temper. He remarks on the Proclamation, in a letter he wrote to make arrangements for saying mass in a private chapel: "There ought to be something in the way of a cassock too, as the Queen and Lord Derby have been pleased to make the country too hot for me to keep on my wearing of the habit for the present. At least so it seems." ”

“ He had travelled a good distance, and was pretty tired; the family he thought proper to honour with his holy presence in a certain town, prepared him a most excellent breakfast. He ate with the appetite of a very hungry man, and when a more secular guest would have said, O jam satis, he jumped up from the table and shouted with ecstatic delight, "I am justified." He never doubted of his election to glory after that, as far as Father Ignatius knew. ”

“ His opinion, therefore, must be received with caution, for it is his duty to be partial, in the most odious sense of that word, and it would be a capital sin to deviate from this long-established rule.
These difficulties do not beset the life that is here presented to the public. Father Ignatius had his alternations of praise and blame during life; but those who thought least of him were forced to admit his great sanctity. If this latter quality be conceded, apology has no room. An admitted saint does not require to be defended ”

“ But it is impossible not to notice that the great tide of conversion that has flowed so unusually, has passed through the two classes to which Father Ignatius himself belonged, that of the clergy and that of the gentry. It is a wonderful result following a most unprecedented combination of the voices of Catholic souls of many nations in prayer, set in motion by the very man who is summing up the result of the work, before he goes to his reward ”

“ The days of the religious life of Father Ignatius might be numbered by his trials and crosses. It was not that a goodly share fell to him, as became his great holiness; but he happened to be so very keenly tried, that what generally assuages the bitterness of ordinary trials served, by a special disposition of Providence, to make his the more galling. His trials were multiplied in their infliction; the friends to whom he might unburthen himself were often their unconscious cause ”

“ Here is an example to help these people on; and they are the greater number. {xi} We have therefore shown Father Ignatius's weak points as well as his strong ones; we have brought him out in his written life precisely as he was in reality.
He comes before us with a mind full of worldly notions, he traces his own steps away from rectitude, he makes his confession to the whole world. How many will see in the youth he passed, far away from God and grazing the edge of the bottomless precipice, a perfect illustration of their own youth. Let them then follow him through life. ”

“ The instilling into young minds religious motives for their actions was a frequent topic of conversation with Father Ignatius in his after-life. He was once speaking with some of our young religious on this subject in general; one of them remarked how easy it was to act upon holy motives practically, and instanced his own childhood, when the thought that God would love or hate him kept him straight in his actions: this was the simple and perpetually repeated lesson of his mother, which he afterwards forgot, but which finally stopped him in a career of ambition, and made him a religious. ”

“ 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 would be always the first in for the midnight office. Many a time the younger portion of the community used to make arrangements overnight to be in before him, but it was no use. Once, indeed, a student arrived in choir before him, and Father Ignatius appeared so crestfallen at being beaten that the student would never be in before him again, and might delay on the way if he thought Father Ignatius had not yet passed. He seemed particularly happy when he could light the lamps or gas for matins. He was childlike in his obedience. ”

“ When Father Ignatius heard of it, he sent for the reverend mother to exhort her to bear the calumny with love and resignation. In speaking to her he said that God had asked all of him, and he had freely given all but his good name, and that he was ready now to offer as it had pleased God to ask for it; for all belonged to Him and he thanked Him for leaving him nothing. 'Will you not.' he continued, 'do the same? Do you not see that God is asking you for the dearest thing you can give? ”

“ His faith was strong that from her conversion a great radiation of truth would spread forth in the world, and that all that was needed was the general prayer of believing souls, that God might grant so great a grace to the world. And so the name of Father Ignatius grew familiar on the lips of Christendom. Prayer arose in many countries; the Bishops issued pastorals, a day in the week was appointed for prayer for England. Prelates spoke of it in synods, and the clergy discussed it in their conferences. ”

“ One must admire his obedience even at the expense of his enjoyment, when he might calculate upon the implicit consent of his mother to their acceding to such a request, and from such a quarter. Another thing we gather from this is, that F. Ignatius, even when a youth, could never bear what was formal or ultra-refined; he always liked natural ease and unaffected simplicity. ”

“ When there is not a sufficient number to chant, of course no law human or divine would require us to do so; and if there be not a congregation, one is not expected, in the ordinary course of things, to preach to empty benches. Father Ignatius was as keenly aware of the common-sense drift of this kind of reasoning as any one could be, but he so overcame the promptings of human considerations, that a literal observance, in the face of such plain exceptions, seemed his ordinary way of acting. ”

“ With his alms, he collects into the Church a young Puseyite minister, who is now a zealous priest on the London mission.
Father Ignatius visits the neighbouring ministers, but not as formerly; he simply goes to see his old acquaintances, and if the conversation could be transferred from compliments and common-place remarks to matters of higher interest, he was not the man to let the opportunity pass by. Among his old friends in the Anglican ministry there seemed to have been few for whom he always cherished so kindly a regard as the Rev. Mr. Harvey, Rector of Hornsey. ”

“ The house in London was doomed to be transplanted to the wilderness of The Hyde, even before {378} the death of Father Dominic, and St. Anne's, Sutton, was not yet begun.
This was the material position of the Passionists when Father Ignatius became Superior, or quasi Provincial. To add to this, the fathers were not first-rate men of business. They could pray well, preach and hear confessions, but they gave people of the world credit for being better than they were. ”

“ It is remarkable that those who crossed him had great respect for his holiness, and, very likely, their opposition proceeded from not giving him credit for much prudence.
An incident that happened to him in one of his journeys in Ireland will give an idea of how he bore humiliations. He was walking to one of the principal towns in Tipperary, and a vehicle overtook him on the road. The man in the car took compassion on the poor old priest, and asked him to "take a lift." Father Ignatius took his seat at once ”

“ But Father Ignatius consulted the light and grace of his own soul, he penetrated to the true principle, he recalled his own history, he saw that conversion is the work of God, that the work itself is the work of grace, and that all that man can do, is to invoke God to put forth His power. Prayer that is pure, sincere, earnest, and of many souls, God always hears and inclines to grant. ”

“ Early in January, 1849, Father Ignatius went, at the invitation of Mr. John Smith, of Button, to see a spot of ground upon which that worthy man intended building a church and house for a community of Passionists. Father Ignatius did not like the situation; but as soon as he spoke to Father Dominic about it, they both came to St. Helen's Junction to see if two heads might not be wiser than one. Father Dominic landed on the platform a little before Father Ignatius, who had been delayed somewhere on the way. He went immediately to look for the great benefactor. ”

“ The pamphlet which he now wrote had been translated into German by a lady in Münster. In it he proposes a bringing back of Catholics to the infancy of the Church, when the faithful laid the price of their possessions at the feet of the Apostles. He proposed a kind of Theocracy, and the scheme creates about the same sensation as Utopia, when one reads it. Like Sir Thomas More, Father Ignatius gives us what he should consider a perfect state of Christian society; he goes into all the details of its working, and meets the objections that might arise as it proceeds. ”

“ Where does God know the truth to exist? Must we all put ourselves in a Cartesian doubt for a starting-point? And so on. The only answer could be—The Catholic Church. And might he not as well ask them to pray for that at once? Father Ignatius was not at all obstinate in sticking to this proposal as a theory he might reduce to practice, it came up at times in his conversation, and was dropped as easily. ”

“ He {459} became a convert when captain in the Guards, and shortly after joined our Institute. He was the first rector of Blessed Paul's Retreat, and having edified his brethren by his humility and religious virtues for nearly six years, the term of his life as a Passionist, died in the odour of sanctity. He had been ailing for some time, but still able to do a little in the way of preaching and confessions. It was advertised that he would preach in Gardiner Street, Dublin, on Sunday, March 1. He died that day at one o'clock A.M., and Father Ignatius went to preach in his stead ”

“ He was specially happy in his fund of anecdote, and could tell one, it was believed, on any subject that came before him. This extraordinary gift of conversational power made the Conferences delightful. The novices, when they assembled in recreation, and gave their opinions on Father Ignatius, whom many had spoken to for the first time in their life, nearly all would conclude, "If there ever was a saint, he's one." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us plead to God through the Mother of God, and let her plead for her sons on earth to her Son in Heaven, and behold our prayer is tripled in its strength. So Ignatius looked to God through the eyes of Mary, prayed to God through the heart of Mary, and appealed through the purity of Mary, for a people who had forgotten her. And he went forth on his Apostleship of prayer over Italy and France, and Hungary and Austria, and the rest of Germany; and over Belgium and England, and Ireland and Scotland, and he corresponded with the other kingdoms of Christendom. ”