Did you know that Covid 19 has affected even would-be-saints who died long ago? The bicentenary of the birth of Elizabeth Prout was to be celebrated last September. But, because of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the celebrations had to be cancelled. But the Sisters of the Cross and the Passion, the Congregation she founded, requested Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, England, where she was born, to celebrate a Mass at his cathedral. Bishop Davies said that Elizabeth Prout would have understood the inevitability of these restrictions, since she lived through terrible epidemics that swept the industrial slums in northern England during those years.
Elizabeth Prout was born in Coleham, Shrewsbury, England on 2 September 1820 to an Anglican mother and a father who was a lapsed Catholic. Elizabeth was baptized and brought up in the Anglican Church. In her mid-twenties, when she lived in Stone, Staffordshire, she met Fr Dominic Barberi, an Italian Passionist, now a Blessed. She soon became a Catholic and, a few years later, joined the Sisters of the Infant Jesus at Northampton. But illness forced her to return home where her mother nursed her back to health. Although they knew she had become a Catholic, her parents did not allow her to attend Mass. Forced to make a choice between her family and her faith, Elizabeth left home and made her way to Manchester, looking for work.
Fr M A Joe Antony SJ
To read the entire article, click Subscribe
