GENTILI
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GENUFLEXION
suited to the purpose. This led to a great friendship
between the young priest andJIr. de Lisle, the submis-
sion of the whole project to Rosmini, and eventually
to the coming of tientili and other fat hers to England in
1835. It was not merely the invitation of Air. Phil-
lips de Lisle that brought tlie Hosminians to England.
In the meantime, one of the vicars Apostolic, Bishop
Baines, who then ruled over the Western District,
having his residence at Bath, had sought to obtain the
services of the fathers for his college of Prior Park.
Though Rosmini gave his consent as early as 1831, the
perioil of preparation for the English Mission was a
long one ; for the little band did not sail from C'ivita
Veechia till 22 May, 1835. They set forth with a more
personal blessing and mission from the Holy See than
even St. Augustine and his companions received from
St. Gregory the Great; for Pope Gregory XVI actu-
ally came on board the vessel and blessed the three
"Italian missioners" just before they sailed, probably
a unique event in missionary history. Gentili and his
companions arrived in Lontlon on 15 June, and no
time was lost in getting to work. A few days later
Gentili preached his first sermon in England, at
Trelawnej' House, in Cornwall, whither they had been
invited by Sir Henry Trelawney, Bart., a zealous con-
vert. He took for his text, "Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church", and his discourse
made a remarkable impression upon the many Protes-
tants who came to hear it. Soon after, the mission-
aries were settled at Prior Park, where early in the
following year ( 1 830) Gentili gave a retreat to the whole
college; and this was one of the first, if not the first
public retreat accortling to the method of St. Ignatius
ever given in a secular college in England. For this
reason it excited among some no little criticism and
opposition as a "novelty".
For two years Gentili was made president of Prior Park ; but Bishop Baines' plan of combining secular and regular professors on his staff was an ill-advised one, and eventually led to the only possible result, viz. the entire withdrawal of the fathers from Prior Park College. This step left them free to devote their ener- gies and their increasing numbers to the real work for which they came — preaching the Faith to the English people. In 1840 was opened the missionary settle- ment at Grace-Dieu, the seat of Mr. Phillips de Lisle, from which as a centre they evangelized much of the surrounding country, the total population of which region was reckoned at GOOD, of whom only twenty- seven were Catholics. Notwithstanding the unprom- ising surroundings, the bitter hostility of the neigh- bouring ministers and Gentili's being publicly burnt in efBgy, his ceaseless labours were rewarded in a space of some two years, by the reception of sixty-one adult converts, the baptism of sixty-six children under seven years of age and of twenty other children condi- tionally, and the conversion of an Anglican clergyman, Rev. Francis Wackerbarth. These consoling fruits were secured by incessant toil, daily instructions, vis- its, and religious services of every kind, sometimes in inns or hired rooms, sometimes in a poor cottage, or even in the open air. In the meantime the numbers of the Fathers had much grown. Among the Italians are now to be mentioned Fathers Pagani, Rinolfi, and Signini; whilst some Englishmen and Irishmen had joined their ranks, notably the afterwards celebrated Fathers Furlong and Hutton. In 18-12 Gentili visited Oxford, where it is probable, but not certain, that he met Newman. At any rate the visit had important consequences. For Gentili did meet one of Newman's chief and best-beloved followers. William Lockhart, a young Scotch graduate. The result was that during August of the following year, "Mr. Lockhart, feeling it impossible to resist his conviction that the Anglican Church had fallen into fatal schism in separating from the Holy See, came to visit Father Gentili at Lough- borough. After making a few days retreat under him
in the chapel house at Loughborough, he was received
into the Catholic Church, and a little later, entered as
a postulant of the Order". This conversion was the
very first-fruit of the C)xford Movement, preceding the
reception of Newman himself by no less than two
years.
The first public mission was given at Loughborough by Fathers Gentili and Furlong, and had an extraor- dinary success. Sixty-three converts were instructed and received at it. From this time forward, the work of the fatlicrs takes a new and far wider development. Great jiublic missions all over the country alternate with innuMieralile spiritual retreats to colleges and communities for the next five years. It was a stir- ring-up of the minds and hearts of the Catholics of England, and a gathering into the net of converts from Protestantism, on a scale which astonishes us as we read of it at this distance of time. Some idea may be given of the labours and zeal of the fathers from what has been recorded of various great public missions. They usually gave four or five discourses daily, at fixed intervals, taking the sermons alternately, treat- ing both dogmatic and moral Gospel doctrines, espe- cially the great truths, the mysterj-of the Redemption, the Divine precepts, the Life of Christ. And the whole of the time intervening between the discourses was devoted to the arduous work of the confessional. So great usually was the concourse of penitents, that the fathers w'ere kept occupied for eight or ten hours a day. Sometimes they even remained in church all night long, hearing confessions, and had absolutely no time either to say Mass, or recite the Divine Office, much less take any sleep, or any nourishment, except in a hasty manner. Such wearisome labours were not interrupted, but only varied, for weeks and even months together. They had to prepare children for their First Communion, instruct converts, restore peace in families, see to the restitution of ill-gotten goods. They also introduced processions, evening Benedictions, and other solemn functions at the close of missions.
The years 1844 to 1848 were fully occupied with an incredible number of popular missions and retreats all over England. At Newcastle 250 adult Protestants were received into the Church; at Manchester mis- sions in three of the principal churches produced no less than 378 converts. It was in 1848 that Gentili gave his great mission in Dublin, where, in spite of the political excitement of that year, the confessionals were so crowded, that the Fathers often sat there without a break from the last instruction at night till the Mass on the following morning. But a sad and altogether unexpected blow brought to a sudden end the labours of this great mission. Father Gentili, the pioneer missioner, was suddenly seized with a fatal fever, and died after only a few da_ys' illness. His mortal remains still repose in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Pagani, Life of the Rei\ Aloi/sius Gentili, LL.D. (London, 1851); G. B. Pagani, La Vita di Luigi Gentili (Rome, 1904); Idem, The Life of Anlonio Rosmini-Serbati (tr. and abridged, London, 1907); Purcell and de Lisle, Life and Letters of Am- brose Phillips de Lisle (2 vols., London, 1900); Casartelli, A Forgotten Chapter of the Second Spring (London, 1895).
L. C. Casartelli.
Gentili, Charles Joseph. See Agra, Archdio- cese OF.
Genuflexion. — To genuflect [Lat. genu fleclere, genicuhire (post-classic), to bend the knee; Gr. ybw Muetit or KaixTTTeiv] expresses (1) an attitude (2) a ges- ture: involving, like prostration, a profession of de- pendence or helplessness, and therefore very naturally adopted for praying and for worship in general. " The knee is matle flexible by which the offence of the Lord is mitigated, wrath appeased, grace called forth" (St. Ambro.se, Hexaem., VI, ix). "By such posture of the body we show forth our humbleness of heart" (Alcuin, De Parasceve). " The bending of the knee is an expres-
