The news that Hitler, like Napoleon before him, had invaded Russia certainly made the world hold its breath; but it came as a tonic to his other enemies. Churchill lost no time in declaring Britain’s full support for Russia.

Not so the Novices at Brugelette! Once again there was deep division. All were agreed that the Nazi Regime was indistinguishable from the worst features of Communism. That it was devoid of all theme and principle except appetite and racial domination. Both systems excelled in all forms of human wickedness in the efficiency of their cruelty and ferocious aggression. The ideal solution therefore would be for the two systems to destroy each other. The answer however was not so simple.

Feeling naturally ran high among the five different nationalities which formed the Community. There was support for Germany but also for Russia. On that first day a goodly number hummed "Deutschland über Alles"; but the majority sang the "Marseillaise" (formez vos bataillons!).

Animated discussions concerning the merits of the various Religious Orders in general, and the Society of the Sacred Heart Fathers in particular, were frequent in the Novitiate. These discussions were encouraged.

In September, preceded by a retreat of eight days, the Novices took the three vows of Religion. They thus became full members of the Society. Always a day of great rejoicing in the Novitiate. A new order of life.

Six years of hard study were now about to begin, in another location, the historic city of Louvain, seat of the great Catholic University, founded AD 1425; and renowned all over the world.

One remembered a prayer of St Thomas Aquinas: "Give this life to me then, feed and feast my mind. Thou, the greatest glory man was meant to find".

On a summit of the ridge, overlooking the road, stood the College (Scholasticate or Major Seminary) of the Sacred Heart Fathers. Set in its own ten-acre grounds, five stories high with its triple-arched entrance, its three pointed gable-turrets with crosses, its one hundred and twenty gothic-framed windows; and dominating the highway; it was an imposing sight.

First-year students generally regarded its elaborate facade with awe and a certain trepidation! The ten acres provided a large vegetable garden, a prolific orchard, a playing field, a sheep-fold and two recreational parks. The lawn in front of the house boasted a large grove, picturesquely described in the brochure as "un rideau de marronniers" (a curtain of chestnuts). This successfully concealed the house from traffic on the road below.

Indeed on one occasion a French Bishop trying to find the place later told the Rector, with tongue in cheek some thought, that "Nul ne devine si proche une jeunesse serieuse et douee; un peuple d’etudiants, studieux aux jours de classe, exuberants aux heures de delassement".

Some believed him! Some remembered their Shakespeare, and Olivia’s description of Orsino: "Yes, I suppose him virtuous; know him noble; of good estate; of fresh and stainless youth"! Some just smiled!!

The brochure described the house as being "Sur une hauteur balayee par tous les vents". Yes, pure bracing ventilation we had up there at all times. In stormy weather the very air seemed to breathe electricity. On one occasion twenty-six windows were shattered by the massive hailstones.

In Winter at one stride came the dark, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.

The view from the top storey was superb. To the south lay the historic University-City with its Colleges, its Halls, its Spires.

To the north and east the undulating wooded plains of Brabant: "Le plateau brabancon". Brussels was about twelve miles distant. Malines, the Ecclesiastical capital, about fifteen. As everywhere in Belgium, transport was excellent; train, tram and autobus.

The Scholasticate could accommodate a hundred students, ten Professors and some ten or twelve other Staff. In 1941 it had a full complement.

The two-year course of Philosophy began on 1st October. The principal branches being Metaphysics and Logic; Cosmology; Theodicy; General and Special Ethics; History of Philosophy; and some three or four other minor subjects.

The textbooks were in Latin but the lectures were in French. The officially prescribed textbooks and lectures were, after all, only a guide. It was left to the student himself to add substance and life - with heavenly help and extensive reading!

The College had a fine library. Studies proceeded without incident or hindrance. Once each term we had an outing - "une grande promenade". One could leave the house at 8.00 am and return at 8.00 pm. Each individual decided where he would wish to go; and that could be anywhere in Belgium. It was forbidden to cross the frontier because of the war. Generally speaking, we went to one of our houses, to Brussels, or to a famous locality such as Waterloo.

December 1941 was indeed a fateful month for Hitler. He met his very first defeat in the war at the gates of Moscow; he could not take the city.

Until now all his campaigns had lasted from three to five weeks. Poland, France, Belgium, Greece, Yugoslavia and others. Russia was different. He always knew he could not take it in three weeks; but perhaps in three months?!

His failure affected all the peoples of occupied Europe. Until now rations were good and plentiful, but with the prospect of further disasters and tribulation ahead, the Germans introduced new controls in 1942. Few victories came to brighten that dark year. Food and fuel were strictly rationed for the first time. The Germans would certainly squeeze civilian supplies to keep going; we all anticipated that!

We had, however, other arrangements. The farmers were very short of labour. All the man-power was in prisoner-of-war camps or working in Germany.

From the start of the Occupation in May 1940 the Reich offered voluntary work in Germany with colourful stories of good pay and conditions. Every bus and tram carried the slogan: "Un bon salaire vous attend en Allemagne". The reality was quite different, and in May 1942 work was made compulsory. Soon half a million men were working in Germany whether they liked it or not, as the pressure upon the German war-machine sharpened.

In these circumstances the College Bursar made a pact with local farmers. Sixty or seventy young men would reap and sow their wheat-harvest in return for so many sacks of wheat; and the same young men would pick their potatoes in return for so many sacks of potatoes. This pact suited both parties and worked very well.

We ground the wheat and baked the bread in the College. The bakery was in a corner of one of the cellars; a little ‘two-storey’ building with a fire of wood on the ‘ground floor’ under the oven, which was the ‘first floor’.

It could take about twenty loaves which were manipulated with a wooden ‘oar’. The bread was rather rough as "nothing was taken out", so it certainly merited the title of ‘wholemeal’ and was very wholesome and very tasty.

Fuel, coal and coke were a much bigger problem in these first winters in Louvain. We always had enough for the kitchens and for a large round iron stove installed in the centre of the main study-hall; but the supply for the central heating system and for hot water was uncertain; and usually came piecemeal. Once could, of course, spend the evening in the study-hall, but the majority preferred to study in their rooms, with a blanket, perhaps, round their shoulders. We always rose at 5.00 am, but shaving had to be postponed. The water would be frozen solid; a block of ice!

They came via Spain and Switzerland under the supervision of the Red Cross. After that we managed to get a letter about every three months.

In those days there was a sort of chilly comfort in thinking how unimportant one’s personal affairs were. But when that sort of comfort had chilled one quite thoroughly came the warmth - the feeling that nothing mattered except personal feelings!

Easter, like Christmas, was a great Festival. People came from all over the city to the great Benedictine Abbey of Mount Caesar for the Solemn High Mass. Listening to the choir singing the Easter greeting: "Salve festa dies, toto venerabilis Aevo", transported one to another world.

By June 10th the term was over; lectures would not start again until October.

The four candidates for the future English Province spent the holidays in Tervuren, our junior boarding school. It was a large building with accommodation for several hundred boys. It was also ideally situated. The nearby Forest of Soignes was perfect for exploratory walks. The great parks; the Arboretum; the great Museum of Central Africa were very convenient. So too were the city of Brussels and the ancient shrine Notre Dame au Bois (Jezus-Elk); both just a few kilometres away.

Here, even in war-time, the food was excellent and plentiful, and there was an abundance of hand-rolling cigarette tobacco! The ration at Louvain was a mere 50 grammes per week.

Best of all we had a good radio-set, all to ourselves, for the BBC bulletins and of course for "Lilli Marlene"!

Something similar happened in the Second World War; only this time on the enemy side. In August 1941 the German soldiers’ radio station at Belgrade was put on the air. Among the equipment was a case of records, including "Lilli Marlene".

The song was broadcast and became an immediate "hit". All over Europe people were whistling it and humming it. It was translated into Italian and French. Marlene Dietrich sang it in her native German; but also in English: "Underneath the lamplight by the barrack gate,

Darling I remember the way you used to wait"!

No-one had ever heard it anywhere before. Yet in some curious telepathic way it sprang up all over Europe in countless squares and streets and pubs; wherever soldiers gathered.

The living improvisation of peoples to whom victory had come; not with the trumpet notes of a Siegfried, or the clarion call of a Cromwell, but as a common earth touch; a warm bawdy link with the boisterous mobs of the past, of Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer. The song was broadcast every night at 10.00 pm by Radio Belgrade. In fact, it became the station’s signature tune.

This item was broadcast by the BBC in early August. The German drive to the Caucasus had culminated and foundered during the summer and autumn of 1942. It would lead to Russian Victory at Stalingrad.

Other news of the war we got from the German Army magazine, ‘Signal’.

It is said that in wartime there are always three versions of the news. The Allied version, the enemy version, and the true version! ‘Signal’ was published in twenty languages, and in 1942 had a circulation of three millions. We used to buy the French edition.

But strictly speaking it was never a news magazine. Its main circulation was outside Germany, and was meant for the consumption of the peoples of occupied Europe. Its aim was to show them the excellent conditions of life under the Nazi regime; and the power and might of the German armed forces in all theatres of war.

The campaign, however, which received more coverage than any other was the struggle against Russia; but "Operation Barbarossa" was the blitzkrieg that failed.

Signal was created as an instrument of boosting the war effort by publicising German victories to the conquered peoples and to the army itself. When these were no longer forthcoming, Signal had lost its "raison d’être".

Avid for news of the war, and especially "home news", we used to scan every picture and devour every word. Signal’s design and format were based on the American Life Magazine and have been copied by many European publications since the war, notably "Paris Match" and "Vogue". It represents the finest collection of colour photographs of the Second World War in Europe.

On 7th December 1942 our Religious Community made a Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady at Banneux.

Banneux is a small town in Eastern Belgium near Liege. It was here that, in 1933, the Blessed Virgin appeared several times to Mariette Beco, a young girl of 13, and told her: "Je suis la Vierge des pauvres, je viens soulager la souffrance" (I am the Virgin of the poor, I come to relieve suffering). In 1933, and still more during the war years, there were indeed many poor and much suffering in Belgium.

The purpose of our pilgrimage, however, was to request help for two of our men, then in France on a very special and very dangerous mission for the Congregation.

We boarded the train at Louvain at 6.00 am. It was a military train on its way from Paris to Berlin, packed with German soldiers; all young recruits sent to France for training.

The train had a few coaches reserved for civilians. The troops respected the "reservations" but clearly did not consider the corridors as ‘reserved’. They lay on the floors sound asleep and ‘packed like sardines’. To get anywhere one had, quite literally, to step over them!

We reached Banneux, however, without incident, in time for Solemn High Mass at 10.00 am. We were sixty-six in number, and had a very enjoyable and spiritually profitable day.

No doubt, surveyed in the after time, much that is set down from hour to hour, under the impact of events, may be lacking in proportion or may not seem accurate. But in spite of the turbulence of the times and the many disasters that follow in the wake of war, one’s prayer-life was lived in a stream of coherent thought, capable, when necessary, of being translated with great rapidity into appropriate action. The odds were great; the margins small; the stakes infinite. The petitions of our Pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Banneux were answered to the full.

On 14th March the Community celebrated the Centenary of the birth of our Founder, John Leo Dehon. The Rector, who as a young Religious knew Fr Dehon, gave an excellent conference on Dehonian Spirituality: "This spirituality is primarily sacrificial. The Religious must adhere to Christ to such a degree that he is identified with him, complies with all his desires and carries out all his promptings in the way which he desires, thus continuing his ministry and his Passion. Renunciation is essential as the primary condition for this work. We must have no other will but God’s!" A lucid and formidable programme.

A very important episode in the life of the students and of the College must now be examined. The period of office of the Rector, Julian Jacques, was at an end. Father Jacques, of Brussels, had been Rector for nearly six years. He was not popular. A strict disciplinarian and something of a martinet.

He was a Philosopher, his written articles often began with the words: "Dans le Gethsemane Jesus est seul" and continued in that strain.

But his weekly conference was always excellent and his spoken words were often memorable: "C’est quand vous etes seul dans votre chambre que vous devez cultivez le gout de la priere".

He was highly respected, even if unapproachable, and unable to inspire loyalty. Although unable to bend, he was always good-humoured and hard-working.

Perhaps in his soul there were chords attuned to finer spiritual symphonies than our dull wits could discern. He seemed to be aware, by intuition and experience, of a mysterious law governing spiritual energy and the operations of grace.

In his meditations he had mastered the art of concentration: "Fixer les objets longtemps sans etre fatigue"! His personal philosophy clearly was: ‘Eternal life is the spur, which the clear spirit doth raise,

to scorn delights and live laborious days’.

His successor, Alfred Bodevin, was a native of Luxemburg and could be described as a "man of the people", which his predecessor was not.

Father Bodevin was an authority on medieval history. His conferences and lectures were laced with personal anecdotes, and anecdotes from history; and were always followed with great interest. All his remarkable qualities fitted the need.

His personal force and genius, combined with so much persuasion and contrivance, swept aside many obstacles. His personal buoyancy and vigour were a tonic, and his comprehending spirit sometimes touched the sublime.

Other conferences, some of them memorable, were given by the Spiritual Director, P Carpentier SJ. It was always evident that the ideals he sought to impress on others were partial transcripts from his own inner life.

His strenuous advocacy of prayer was also born of his personal experience: "Get more prayer into your life if you can" was a typical piece of advice. "Follow the attraction of the Holy Spirit, for all souls are not led by the same path" was his tolerant counsel.

During the entire six-year course of Philosophy and Theology, the Professors and Spiritual Directors were Jesuits. We were all aware of their geniality and helpfulness, but could hardly suspect their inner drama of soul, their mystic immolation and unceasing recollection.

This course was followed at the Jesuit College in the city, and involved a twenty minute walk each way, twice a day, five days a week, in all weathers.

Long preparation and thoroughness had enabled a complete programme to be devised, which all were obliged to follow by iron routine. Indeed, routine seemed to be all that a student’s life need consist of, structurally, until the scaffolding is removed later; and one sees how much more there must have been. A person can be outwardly unaltered and yet discover that, inside, without even noticing it, he has travelled a great distance.

There was always an abiding tranquillity; perhaps Canon Law dictated the pace, not our personal aspirations!

All this, however, is not what our modern secular media-led civilisation can possibly understand.

After Mass of the Holy Spirit on 1st October the Jesuit Rector came to the Assembly Hall - the Aula Maxima - to greet us in Latin. It was remarked that he sounded like "Cicero addressing the Senate".

"Patres conscripti; souhaito vobis omnibus bene adventum".

Over the door of the Hall was a large plaque which advised us, in Latin: "Let them anxiously and constantly apply their minds to their studies. Let them, in their prayers, frequently ask for the grace to advance in learning".

All the text books and all the Lectures were in Latin. It is supposed to be a dead language; but all our Professors spoke it with great ease and great fluency. We ourselves found that, after a short time, we could follow them without any difficulty.

Our subjects that first year were:

a) Theologia Fundementalis.

De Vera Religione; De Fide; De Inspiratione; De Ecclesia; De Romano Pontifice; De Traditione; De Veritate historia Evangelicum.

b) Theologia Moralis; De Sacramentis; De Virtutibus theologicis; De Vitrutibus moralibus.

c) Institutiones Iuris Canonici.

The Oral examination, the one most feared, was held before a Board of three Examiners, each of whom, in turn, asked the questions, while the other two assessed the answers; everything in Latin.

It has been said that being taught by the Jesuits was like "having an audience with history". Their system was shaped to train intelligence and will, so that its products could find and apply Christian solutions, to all worldly situations.

Jesuit education aimed to reinforce will by habit, impose order and discipline, teach punctuality (so that students would get used to doing what they should do, and not what they wanted to!). That morality is best when founded on clear rational principles.

Pride and ambition, even vanity, could be turned to the service of Religion, so also could the classics and the lessons of the past. Men could be taught to lead a Christian life; and to this end no means should be ignored.

It was a noble and ambitious programme.

Every Religious Society has, no doubt, its own tale to tell of those trying times.

But the violent changes at the summit of the Nazi regime did not affect, so much as might be supposed, the ordinary life of the occupied nations.

The fighting by now was far away in Russia, in North Africa, at sea. If the flow of life was disturbed, it was in the main unaltered.

But some thrusting spirits ventured forward to play a part in the deadly game of Nazi Politics, with its unparalleled prizes and fatal forfeits and, owing to the conditions of the time, they achieved a fuller realisation of their desires than any of those who have since emulated their proficiency; and there have been many!

In Belgium, the principal thrusting spirits were the Flemish Germanic SS under Staf de Clerq and the Waloon SS under Leon Degrelle.

Both Brigades saw service in Russia, and Degrelle won distinction there. He was, personally decorated with the Knights’ Cross by Hitler, who told him: "If ever I had a son I would have wanted him to be like you".

But there was a darker side. The run-up to war is always marked by malignity and misunderstanding. Most of their time was occupied with repressive guard-duty in Belgium. On one occasion they fired a volley through a window of our School at Tervuren, claiming that the black-out was not effective!

They also rounded up Jews. We hid one - a lad of fifteen, and later, a German deserter; they were never found.

We all knew that Jews were being arrested but we believed it was for work in Germany. We did not know they were being exterminated. There were of course other collaborators.

Early in May an incident occurred, close beside the college, which afforded an opportunity for a splendid act of courage.

The reconstruction of events seems to be that a man was made prisoner, by a group of men who had decided upon his death. Late one night they took him to a wheatfield at the back of the College. They pulled a very large sack over his head and doubled-up body. The sack was tied. He was thrown on the ground and beaten - to death as they thought - with heavy clubs.

Men such as these needed little excuse to abuse any unfortunate at their mercy. This was undiluted hatred, showing itself in its most primitive form. Their motives? Political strife perhaps; bigotry; personal grudges; the resentment which those who serve the powers that be feel for those who will not submit themselves to the yoke.

Unsettled times always gives free rein to such feelings. Man’s inhumanity to man had lost none of its venom.

They left him for dead but he was still breathing. At 2.00 am loud cries of pain were heard by a student who lay awake. When the cries grew louder the student woke up three others, and all four went to investigate.

They found the poor victim, unloosed him, and in that shivering dawn, with great difficulty and possibly great danger to themselves, brought him to the College Infirmary.

He was a very bad case - fractured skull, broken bones, broken ribs, loss of speech and muscular co-ordination. But these things gradually returned. Altogether he spent over a year in various hospitals.

The students were never told who he was, whose "side" he was on, where his loyalties lay, or who was responsible for his injuries; and in those times it was safer not to inquire too closely!

We were informed eventually, however, that he made a complete recovery and donated a large sum of money to the College, for which it was duly grateful. So be it!

Everywhere the Allies were closing in! Nevertheless, life in the centre of Hitler’s empire continued as before, and the most fanatical collaborators still sought every opportunity to flaunt their loyalty.

The bombing of Germany was increasing in intensity. Strategic points in the Low Countries were also attacked. Little or nothing had been done before the war or during the passive period to provide bomb-proof strongholds.

Proper shelters were now constructed in the College basement; but all this took time. We also organised a fire-watch; and a field-guard against possible thieves or looters. This form of service had a bracing and buoyant effect upon everyone.

At the end of May Louvain was bombed. The target was the Railway Station, an important junction. The attack caused appalling chaos in the city. It was indeed a memorable spectacle. First a fleet of planes, "Pathfinders", released hundreds of flares suspended on tiny parachutes. These illuminated the whole area. Next came the bombs, hundreds of tons were dropped and, not for the first time, they hit about everything except the target. Hundreds of civilians were killed and many buildings destroyed or damaged. Two Lancasters were brought down. Devastation was also widespread around the city. Residential areas, and many University buildings, were hit, including the ancient Fonteyn Library.

The SCJ students, among others, spent many hours seeking out the wounded and carrying them to the various hospitals. For this, and other charitable work, they were highly commended by the Civic Authority of Louvain; and the Chief Commissar of Police mentioned them in his Dispatches.

Throughout the late Spring of 1944 everything within the still massive Nazi domain gave an impression of ordered discipline and of permanence.

Law and order held sway in Belgium, thanks to the authority of the suspicious and, sporadically brutal, Nazi Governor residing in Brussels. Part of the population accepted the Nazi Protectorate; and force compelled the rest to acknowledge it.

Students continued to lead the same lives they had led for years. Lives regulated in minute detail by religious rites and observances, by lectures in vast lecture-halls, by classes in classrooms; and by long periods of individual study and reading.

Our principal subjects for that year were De Virtutibus Infusis; De Deo Uno et Trino; De Deo Creante et Elevante; De peccato originali; De Novissimis; De Analysi fidei.

Towards the end of May a certain rumour gained currency among the conquered peoples of the Continent and fanned them to a feverish pitch of excitement. The rumour that the longed-for invasion, the so-called Second Front was imminent.

The message that followed the 9.00 pm BBC News on the night of 1st June was eagerly awaited. "Kindly listen now to a few personal messages", said the voice, in French.

There was a pause and then: "Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne" (the long sobs of the violins of Autumn). There it was, the message they had been warned to expect. It was the first line of "Chanson d’Automne" (Song of Autumn) by the nineteenth-century French poet, Paul Verlaine.

According to information passed to the Underground, this line from Verlaine was to be transmitted on the 1st or 15th of a month, and would represent the first half of a message announcing the Anglo-American invasion.

The last half of the message would be the second line of the Verlaine poem. When this was broadcast it would mean that "the invasion will begin within forty-eight hours, the count starting at 00.00 hours on the day following the transmission".

At the local Headquarters of the Resistance in Pleinstraat Louvain, it was a little after 10.15 pm on the night of 5th June when what was probably the most important message broadcast to the Underground throughout the whole of World War II was received.

The message picked up from the BBC broadcast was the second line of the Verlaine poem: "Blessent mon coeur d’une langeur monotone" (Wound my heart with a monotonous languor). The Resistance now knew that the invasion would take place within forty-eight hours. It began, in fact, the very next day, 6th June 1944, at dawn.

The very first intimation we had of the great event was from one of the Sisters on our domestic staff, from the nearby convent.

She gave the news as if she were confessing a fault, a "culp" for herself and her Sisters: "O mon pere, nous n’avons rien fait toute la matinee sauf ecouter la radio"!

Knowing full well that the nuns did not usually spend the whole morning listening to the radio, or any part of the day for that matter, we were taken aback and asked for an explanation.

It was now her turn to be surprised. "Have you not heard, the Allies have landed in Normandy and have established a bridgehead" (Une tete de pont). We had little idea of what a "bridgehead" from the sea meant in military terms; but clearly they were ashore!

The excitement that day was indeed tremendous; a day when little things are remembered long after much else has been forgotten. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive" ! We felt as if we were a part of history. History has indeed recorded the invasion of the Continent as an achievement of the highest order; the dramatic story of Europe’s greatest ordeal in the Second World War.

We arrived at the end of June. "Bounteous Nature loves all lands, beauty wanders everywhere"! The curtain now rises on a widely different scene.

Rolling green hills covered with orchards and woods, rich in streams and springs; the Ardennes constitutes one of the major geographical regions of Belgium.

Clairefontaine, in the valley of the fountains, a name unknown perhaps to secular historians, but rich in religious legend. St Bernard passed this way on his journey to Clairveaux in the days when the area was called "Beaulieu". Countess Ermesinde established here a great convent for an Order of Nuns. And in 1889 Father Dehon established a fine Junior Seminary for his fledgling Society.

It was here that our group spent the months of July, August and September. Far removed from any main road and from any big town, life was placid and peaceful. Long hikes over the hills; deer-stalking in the woods; swimming in the cool streams; bonfires in the evening around which we sang: "Sarie Marais"; "Morgenrot"; "La Legende du Feu"; "Mon pere ainsi qu’ ma mere", and many other numbers from two Scouts’ song books; "Tiouli and l’Olifant".

Although well away from the battle-zone, we managed to keep ‘au fait’ with the news. The situation on the Western Front was agreeable. But the enemy fought desperately and were not easily overcome. Nevertheless good progress was made except for the failure to capture Caen.

This small but famous town, birthplace of William the Conquerer, was to be the scene of bitter struggles over many days.