Blessings on Philip Trower and Dunstan Thompson
God often makes unexpected appearances, He did so in their lives as well. Philip and Dunstan were visiting Walsingham one weekend, not far from where they lived, when a procession of the Blessed Sacrament passed by. Dunstan suddenly fell to his knees and made the sign of the Cross – all before his shocked companion. Philip immediately sensed there was something much greater than his earthly relationship with Dunstan, and that it would have profound consequences for their lives. It did. After Dunstan told Philip that he had made a complete confession and reconciled with the Church, Philip knew that meant an immediate end to their sexual relationship. At first, Philip felt isolated and abandoned, but soon realised it was a great blessing, for it liberated him from a life of sin which he always knew to be wrong. Better yet, Dunstan’s Catholic reawakening led Philip to become a Catholic as well, discovering what he had providentially been told, by a friend, as a young man: “You will never find love until you find it in the tabernacle.” The two remained very close companions (Philip served as Dunstans’ literary executor after the poet’s death in 1975) but, faithful to Catholic teaching, never sinned with one another again. —William Doino Jr., “A Catholic gentleman: the inspiring life of Philip Trower”