August 26th,  the Passionists remember one of their great missionaries, Blessed Dominic Barberi, born in Viterbo, Italy, in 1792. Early on, God inspired him to be a missionary to England. The desire to work for Christian unity grew after Dominic entered the Passionist community, where he taught theology and was a spiritual director.

In 1840, Dominic left Italy to bring the Passionist community to Ere, Belgium. In 1842, he went to England and became a popular preacher of missions and retreats, establishing a Passionist retreat at Aston Hall, near Stone. Initially,  he tried to engage the leading religious scholars at Oxford in dialogue. The Industrial Revolution was changing that country, however, and thousands of poor Catholic immigrants from Ireland and England were flocking to the great English factory towns, fleeing poverty and looking for work. Priests were needed and Dominic, though he never spoke English well, tirelessly preached and ministered to them.

Dominic never got his wish to engage the learned scholars of England as a lecturer at Oxford, but he was noticed by them all the same. One of  England’s greatest intellectuals, John Henry Newman, was attracted to Dominic, not by the religious tracts he sent to him, but by his zeal and humility. Newman was looking for those qualities in the Roman church at the time.

“If they want to convert England,” Newman wrote earlier, “let them go barefoot into our manufacturing towns, let them preach to the people like St Francis Xavier–let them be pelted and trampled on, and I will own they do what we cannot…Let them use the proper arms of the Church and they will prove they are the Church.”

Dominic, humble, zealous and faithful, used the proper arms of the Church of his time, popular missions and retreats which stressed basic catechesis and devotional prayer. They were the primary way the Roman Catholic Church reached out then to the peoples of Europe and also the Americas.

When Newman decided to enter the Catholic Church, he asked for Father Dominic Barberi to receive him. He said he was Dominic’s “convert and penitent”.

Domenic died in Reading, near London, England on August 27, 1849. His grave in Sutton, St. Helens, England is a place of pilgrimage for the English people. Pope Paul VI declared him “Blessed” on October 27, 1963 during Vatican II, calling him an example of ecumenism and an apostle of unity.

Lord, you sent Blessed Dominic to seek out the lost sheep of your flock by preaching your truth and witnessing to your love.

May we follow his example and build up the unity of your Church as a sign of faith and love. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God, for ever and ever.

Longer biography here:

Writings of Blessed Dominic can be found here.