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 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 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 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 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.