THE LORETO NUNS - ST. MICHAEL’S PROTECTION OF THE LORETO CONVENT, YORK.

THE LORETO NUNS - ST. MICHAEL’S PROTECTION OF THE LORETO CONVENT, YORK.

The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (the Loreto nuns), were founded by Mary Ward, (1585-1645), who came from a recusant family in the turbulent period of Catholic persecution in England in the years following Elizabeth I.From the time of the Act of Uniformity, (1559), it was illegal to practice the Catholic faith in England. The Act of Supremacy required an oath swearing allegiance to the Queen as the head of the Church of England – excluding Catholics from all office - judges, justices, mayors, royal officials, clergy and all universities. The initial penalty for refusal to take the oath was loss of office. Four years later, however, the penalty had been increased to loss of goods and imprisonment for a first offence, with a second offence counted as treason and punishable with death together with forfeiture of all property to the Crown

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The Act of Uniformity, (1558), had set the order of prayer to be that of the Church of England Book of Common Prayer and made it mandatory that all persons attend Church of England service once a week. Under Elizabeth’s spy-master, Francis Walsingham, church wardens reported upon those in the community who refused to attend services or refused to take Anglican communion. These people were termed “recusants” and received increasing penalties, including loss of employment, loss of property or imprisonment and death.

During the reign of Elizabeth, Catholic education was suppressed – until 1762, sworn affiliation to the Church of England was required for entry into the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In response, the Jesuits created colleges in Europe, at Douai, Rome and Valladolid, directed to the training of priests, and St Omer for the education of young Catholic laymen.

In 1595, Mary Ward’s family home was burned down in an anti-Catholic riot – the children, who were praying at the time, were saved by her father. She felt called to active rather than contemplative religious life, and established a religious community at the age of 24 at St Omer. The charism of the order she established was modelled on the Jesuits and brought many novel aspects to religious practice at the time. She opened a school based upon the Jesuit ideals formulated by Father Robert Parsons, with her teaching directed to the education of young women, saying that, “in time women will achieve much”. The charism of the order was reflected by Mother Gonzaga Barry’s observation, in 1834, “What the world needs is a lovable and well-educated woman.”

Her vision was for women to do for the Church in their proper field what men had done for it in the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits were a formidable force in the resistance by the English Catholics to the oppression experienced. Priests such as Garnet, Parsons and Edmund Campion administered the sacraments and taught and defended the faith at the cost of their lives.

After establishing schools in Europe, Mary Ward returned to England and founded a convent in London. There she and her companions established free schools for the poor, nursed the sick and visited prisoners. In 1642, she established a convent at Heworth, near York.

She died at St Mary’s school in the siege of York during the English Civil War. She was buried outside the city due to fear that her body would be desecrated.

The records of Mary Catharine Elizabeth Chambers, a Loreto sister, detail incidents in the convent of the Loreto nuns at Micklegate Bar, a convent which was established in York by another (formidable) woman from a another formidable recusant family, Mother Frances Bedingfield.

Mother Mary Chambers related the history of the convent as follows:

“On 5th November 1686, Mrs Bedingfield purchased a house and garden on the site of the present convent, which the Institute of Mary has occupied ever since”. It appears that the wily Mrs Bedingfield purchased the property under an alias, (Frances Long), owing to anti-Catholic antipathy and her distrust of the motives of the local authorities, and it seems she was under the patronage of a pious “good old Baronet”. In the convent they were buried without gravestones, presumably to avoid desecration of their bodies. After detailing various (rather sobering) incidents, Mother Mary Chambers related the following incident:

“About this time, certainly not later than 1696, a final attempt was made to disturb the peace of the house. The more fanatical protestants of York had resolved on its complete destruction, and for this end stimulated the anti-Catholic prejudices of the unreasoning multitude by the circulation of ‘no-Popery’ watch cries. The religious had, however, secured many kind friends outside the pale of the Church, who carefully watched the action of their enemies, and fully prepared the community for the impending peril. Every precaution that prudence could suggest, was taken to reduce the number of those upon whom it seemed the approaching blow must inevitably fall. The children were conveyed in parties to the houses of various friends. The chaplain’s safety was provided for; the most precious treasures such as relics etc., were committed to trustworthy keeping; and the religious, full of confidence in God, yet unprotected by human aid, awaiting the coming of the storm. Rev Mother Bedingfield ordered a picture of St Michael to be hung over the front door, and solemnly placed the convent under the protection of this glorious Archangel and all the Heavenly Host. This was scarcely accomplished, when a mob of hundreds of infuriated men, armed with weapons of destruction, surrounded the House. She, availing herself of the permission she had received for cases of emergency such as this, took from the Tabernacle the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament, and placing it in her bosom knelt in the midst of her religious sisters in the passage leading to the street door; and whilst the street without resounded with the shouts of their enemies, she calmly and confidently thus addressed her Hidden Treasure, “Great God! Save Yourself, for we cannot save You!”

Suddenly all was still. As if they had been ordered by someone in authority, the mob began to move off in a body without even touching a brick or breaking a pane of glass. Many persons had gathered together to watch the issue of their proceedings, and some gentlemen of credit among them afterward assured the religious, that no-one was heard to give a word of command or even seen to make a sign to the mob to disperse, but that they saw them suddenly desist from their purpose, and turn their steps quietly through the Bar into the city. The persons, however, who lived in the house opposite the convent, which remains almost unaltered to this day as it then stood, declared that, at the moment of the threatened attack they saw over the convent a tall personage on a white horse brandishing a sword, whose appearance appalled the crowd and caused them to retreat; and an unbroken tradition to this effect is still widely circulated in the City. The religious, of course, at prayer within, saw nothing of all of this; for them the reality was accomplished; their safety was secured, and no attempt of the kind was ever afterwards made. “

Mother Chambers detailed a custom that prevailed after this incident in the Loreto Convents where, “on the eve of Michaelmas Day, the picture of St Michael is taken from its place over the front door and placed in the hands of the youngest child in the school who, between the next two in age carrying candles, bears it through the house to the chapel, to be received by the Sacristan and placed near the altar where it remains for the octave of the feast. This little ceremony was then invested with greater solemnity where the children sang the Gloria Patri during the procession, “where their youthful strains give place to the full notes of the organ and the voices of the religious, who intone the Tibi Omnes Angeli etc, while the children form round the sanctuary a semicircle, within which stand the little bearer of St Michael’s picture and the two attendants.”

Detailed in the photographs is the statue of St Michael at Loreto Convent, together with a plaque in which the story is briefly told.

Mary Catharine Elizabeth Chambers, “St Mary’s Convent, Micklegate Bar, York, 1686-1887”, at pp. 84-86.