THE SOUL WHO CAME AS A ROVING LIGHT IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

Once upon a time in England (oh, I remember it well) one of the worst things a Catholic could be called was "Jesuitical" by anti-Catholic others.  It was not a term of endearment and never a compliment. But rather a clever slur because to say someone was "Jesuitical" was essentially to say that they lied or at least equivocated as to their intentions to convert others to Catholicism so as to win the trust of someone until such time as they had reeled them in. Few people were genuinely deserving of being called Jesuitical, it was sometimes used towards someone who was able to offer an apology as to their Faith and was seen in the boardrooms and news stations as a covert influence. A few times, I was called it, it was wholly deserved and I quite enjoyed it as I feel I have a Jesuit soul. 

The use of this word has a long history. In the 1500s when England was transformed from a Catholic country to a Protestant one, Jesuit priests worked undercover and covertly throughout England to bring people back inside the Catholic fold. Approaching 500 years ago, the Jesuits were newly formed and so their newness helped their disguise as ones who tried to convert the English back to Roman Catholicism. They were often viewed as poachers of souls for the Pope in Rome. And hence to say someone was Jesuitical had a long history in the English imagination as a description of a priest who played others so as to proselytize.

This held sway until the election of the first Jesuit, Pope Francis. I remember a writer who I was trying to befriend, she was contemptuous of the Jesuits 'til such time as Pope Francis was toast of London Town, and then she was at pains to portray herself as having always been a fan of the order founded by St Ignatius in the 16th century. The campaign of fawning over Francis has meant that to call Jesuits into question is to call the Pope who is the darling of the liberal media into question. 

This means that for the first time in the life of England as a nation, to be a Jesuit enjoys better esteem among the masses than before. This was not always the case, there was one Father John Gerard who was tortured for his attempts to convert the English back to the Faith. Father Gerard was born in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. His father was Sir Gerard. He was educated as a Catholic among relatives who had become Protestant. After he was ordained, he didn't stint from convincing his own family to be Papists. 

Father Gerard brought the husband of his cousin back to the Catholic Church, and this man converted a friend of his back to Rome. The friend wanted to confess to a priest and so he asked the husband-of-the-cousin to find him one, but this was a time when priests were in hiding for fear of being taken to the Tower of London and being hung from their hands (as was Father Gerard) and it proved impossible to find the friend a priest before death came for him. 

The man who died left behind a wife who had become Protestant. Some nights after he had gone to God, his wife saw a roving light in her bedroom which traveled inside the curtains that covered her four-poster bed. This light scared her, and she asked one of her maids to sleep in the same room. But the maid saw nothing. The Protestant lady thought she had better ask her late husband's Catholic friend as to why there was a supernatural light hovering above her bed at night. Her late husband's friend advised her to seek the counsel of a priest, and when she did, he encouraged her to become Catholic. 

When she had become one of those dreaded Papists, she had Mass celebrated in her bedroom, but the roving light always returned. Her priest discerned that the light was her late husband's sign that he was in Purgatory and requesting prayer. The priest advised that 30 Masses be offered for him, in line with ancient Catholic custom in England, and the faithful widow made haste to have these Masses offered for her dearly departed husband. This was extremely brave of her under the circumstances of dire persecution. On the 30th day, she saw three roving lights which hung together and then ascended into the air towards Heaven. The lights were seen to be a sign of the three conversions, the husband of Father Gerard's cousin, his friend and widow. 

Father John Gerard always described the 30 Masses as being solely an English custom, in tribute to England's past as the most Catholic nation in the world, but Father Gerard was brought up short by Father Schouppe in his book, Purgatory, "The 30 Masses which were said for 30 days is not an English custom only as it is called by Father Gerard...These Masses are called the 30 Masses of St Gregory because the pious custom seems to trace its origin back to this great Pope." Gregory was born a millennium before the Jesuits were founded.  I'd like, however, to add that while the 30 Masses are a hallowed tradition inherited from Great Gregory, it was the English who perhaps did the most to make it a staple part of caring for the souls of our dead, in the times when Catholicism was the state religion and even in the worst time of bloody persecution when Catholics were persecuted by their own state. 

Please consider offering the Litany of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales which is so efficacious in inviting the intercession of those who knew such extreme persecution. May you and I get their courage. 

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This post is informed by Father John Gerard's own memoirs,  The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest.  The painting of Elizabeth I is the "Darnley Portrait" and is in the public domain.