Crusade of Prayer For England
In August 1832 George returned to England to act as a curate to a church in Walsall where he was given particular care of a chapel in West Bromwich. Here he opened three schools, gave lectures on religion and made many converts, as well as his usual activities in the parish. George’s reputation as a preacher began to grow and soon he was preaching as far afield as St. Chad’s, Manchester and St. Mary’s, Derby. During a visit to France in 1838 George proposed a ‘Crusade of Prayer for the Conversion of England’ to Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen, the Archbishop of Paris. Many of George’s influential friends joined this campaign and news of it spread throughout Britain and the Empire. In May 1839, he was appointed spiritual director to the seminarians at Oscott College and in the same month preached at St. Chad’s, Manchester on ‘The Great Importance of a Reunion Between the Catholics and the Protestants of England and the Method of Effecting It.’ In January 1840, George visited John Henry Newman at Oriel College, Oxford to ask Newman to join him in prayer for “unity in truth”. Newman sent Spencer away and refused even to see him, but later apologised for this in his Apologia;
"This feeling led me into the excess of being very rude to that zealous and most charitable man, Mr. Spencer, when he came to Oxford in January, 1840, to get Anglicans to set about praying for Unity. I myself then, or soon after, drew up such prayers; it was one of the first thoughts which came upon me after my shock, but I was too much annoyed with the political action of the members of the Roman Church in England to wish to have anything to do with them personally. So glad in my heart was I to see him when he came to my rooms, whither Mr. Palmer of Magdalen brought him, that I could have laughed for joy; I think I did; but I was very rude to him, I would not meet him at dinner, and that, (though I did not say so,) because I considered him " in loco apostatx " from the Anglican Church, and I hereby beg his pardon for it."
George’s ‘Crusade’ did not only meet with Newman’s opposition, but within the Catholic Church in England where Dr Baines used a Pastoral Letter to reprimand the activities of ‘certain converts’. Whilst George limited his activities for a time he was soon back at work. In July 1842 he set off on a preaching tour of Ireland to beg the prayers of the Irish for their English brethren. Spencer was also greatly pleased to receive the blessing of Pope Pius IX who granted a number of indulgences for those who would pray for England. Spencer’s Crusade was the first association with the unity of Christians as its aim and it is with this in mind that he is often hailed as the ‘Apostle of Ecumenical Prayer’
Read more about this topic: Ignatius Spencer
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