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PILGRIMAGE TO NOTRE DAME DE FOY, SEPTEMBER 2002

(published by Mass of Ages, February 2003)

Madeleine Beard

It was on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross that we five Latin Mass Society pilgrims departed for Foy-Notre-Dame in Belgium. The long links between English and Belgian Catholics and their association with this particular devotion continue. For it was a Belgian Priest, Father Carolus Caestryck, who, in 1817, built the large Holy Cross Church in Leicester. And it was in this church that Father Caestryck, a Dominican who came to England in 1794, received into the Church the Vicar of Brington in Northamptonshire, the Reverend George Spencer. The son of the Second Earl Spencer, his mission as a Passionist priest, an Order founded by St Paul of the Cross, was quite simply the conversion of England. As we pilgrims waited at Stansted Airport I noticed, sitting not far away, the daughter of the Eighth Earl Spencer. Talking animatedly with friends, she and her husband, formerly the Queen’s Private Secretary, departed for Ireland. Was she aware that the Venerable Ignatius Spencer was the first Passionist to set foot in Ireland? Was she aware of his many journeys on the Continent pleading for prayers and alms in his quest for the conversion of his beloved country? It was while Father Ignatius Spencer was begging in Belgium that he received the sad news of the sudden death of his fellow Passionist, Blessed Dominic Barberi. Even at airports, we are surrounded by mystery. The Holy Ghost moves in mysterious ways. (Indeed, we pilgrims later discussed the words Ghost and Spirit. I suggested that if the two are indeed interchangeable, perhaps we should refer not to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, but the ghost of the Second Vatican Council.) Nevertheless, we pilgrims of the Latin Mass Society were setting off on a quest to preserve the Mass for which the Venerable Ignatius Spencer lived and for which the martyrs died.

A boat builder cutting up an oak tree in Dinant on the River Meuse in 1609 found a nine-inch statue of Our Lady inside the trunk, hidden behind a trellis of three rusty bars. So the pilgrimages to Foy began, revived again in 1994 by the Headmaster of the School of St Peter and St Paul in Brussels. Two years ago the Bishop of Namur, Bishop Leonard, whose small diocese numbers more vocations than the whole of Belgium, led the pilgrimage. This year the pilgrimage was led by the Superior of the Fraternity of St Peter, Father Devillers, who was accompanied by two Polish seminarians from the Fraternity.

We set off on Sunday morning from the Abbey of Leffe in Dinant, each Chapter carrying its national flag. With us we had a banner of Our Lady of Walsingham. From the streets of Dinant, we were soon in the woods and walked on singing and saying the rosary in French and in Latin. Several hours later a delightful break for some soup, bread and wine, sitting at long tables beneath canopies, fortified us to continue on for the afternoon walk, which attracted the steady gaze of the cows in the open fields. At one point the international procession of German, Belgian, French, Dutch and British pilgrims encountered a cavalcade of motorbikes. Each culture was equally bemused by the other. Our destination was the lovely church, set in a small hamlet where High Mass was celebrated by a French priest, a Belgian Deacon (Father Duroisin of the Fraternity of St Peter, now based in Holland) and a Polish Sub Deacon. A Gregorian choir and the most beautiful vestments demonstrated the consoling and universal nature of the Roman Rite. And the children, having led the procession, sat quietly throughout the long Mass at the front of the church. Afterwards, with our hired car parked by the church ­ in the morning we had found our way to Foy via a somewhat circuitous route which happened to time perfectly with a waiting taxi which had taken us to Leffe ­ we set off on our homeward journey via Namur (where our intrepid Scottish pilgrim left us by train) to Charleroi and a short flight home.

Later on at Waterloo Station I happened to encounter two stalwart members of the Latin Mass Society from Cambridge, who were about to set off for France. I was able to relate something of this remarkable pilgrimage, which for a short time and only a short distance away, allows traditional Catholics in northern Europe to show their devotion to the Mass and devotion to Our Lady. Because on our arrival in Charleroi we had made our way directly to Beauraing, where we had stayed not far from the place where Our Lady had appeared in the grounds of a boarding school above a hawthorn tree seventy years ago, in November 1932. Her appearances to five children had been accompanied by simple messages: “Always be good”, “Pray always”, “I will convert sinners”. In response to her request a chapel was built. In wartime Belgium, Beauraing saw German and American soldiers visit the shrine and recover their Faith. May Notre Dame de Beauraing and Notre Dame de Foy intercede for Belgium and northern Europe. In this corner of a Belgian field, I would urge British members of the Latin Mass Society to join this pilgrimage next year on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, 2003.