WHEN Baron Friedrich von Hügel gave a friend a copy of Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, he wrote in his gift: “This shewed our good Lord, to make us glad and merry.”

Von Hügel (1852-1925), an influential Roman Catholic thinker and writer although he remained a layman, was always suspicious if religion was depressing or clinging to formulae, or finicky or fastidious.

“I used to wonder in my intercourse with John Henry Newman, how one so good . . . could be so depressing,” he wrote. “I used to marvel contrariwise, in my intercourse with the Abbé Huvelin, how one more melancholy in natural temperament than even Newman himself, could so radiate spiritual joy.”

It was the Abbé Huvelin (1835-1910) who shared such joy with Von Hügel and the thousands of visitors over the years who came to his darkened room in Paris. They felt that, in a unique sense, Huvelin was open to them and convinced them that they were not completely alone in the world. “Prayer will be for you rather a state than a precise deliberate act,” he used to teach them, and they experienced it with him.

Many Britons in France have felt this shared spiritual joy and unargumentative generosity. British civilians left during the war in Dinard — in German hands after 1940 — found their faith deepened when, each Sunday in St Bartholomew’s Anglican church, a French Catholic priest celebrated for them in English the Common Prayer Book service of Holy Communion without asking questions. The same church was also used on several occasions during the war by Lutheran soldiers of the German Army.

In the 1960s in the Dordogne a hurricane demolished an international holiday c the village opened its hall free of charge to all those whose tents had been wrecked. We responded by joining a blood-donor session in the village school (and found the post-session red wine and cold ham much more reinvigorating than their British equivalents).

When the curé discovered that I was an Anglican clergyman he insisted that I shared in the consecration of the Mass on Sunday. To my questions about the bishop and regulations, he replied, “If the Bishop of Tulle knew he would be delighted.”

I was of use to this fine priest by completing the end of the Mass while he set off for Clermont-Ferrand hospital, at breakneck speed on a motorbike, to visit a sick firefighter.

Today the shortage of priests in many small towns and villages in France means that there cannot be a service every Sunday. French clergy sometimes ask Anglican clergy to fill the gaps.

On the holiday festival of the Assumption, an important event in Brittany, an Anglican with many friends in the French church was invited by the curé, who had to be elsewhere that day, to take his place. As he has fluent French (he had done his National Service with French troops clearing German minefields) he could save the situation and he communicated more than 800 at this Mass. As a teacher as well as a priest and musician, he occasionally brings a church choir with him. He also finds himself much in demand to describe how English Christians face the same problems, and he shares the Anglican liturgy with fellow believers across the Channel.

Another Anglican chaplain visiting a French jail with many English prisoners is warmly welcomed as a colleague by a French Catholic priest, and they reinforce each other’s ministry. Fortunately, both these Anglican priests had trained at Lincoln Theological College, where there was often a Catholic priest on the staff.

In the 1970s a cardinal, desperate for a priest, asked an Anglican to celebrate the All Saints Mass in a small village. When the Anglican protested that he was an Anglican, the cardinal replied: “The question of Anglican orders is a very open one, and they (the villagers) will love it.”

When in the winter there was sometimes no Anglican priest for the English community’s Christmas Eucharist, an English-speaking French Roman Catholic priest used to celebrate a Christmas Eucharist strictly according to the Book of Common Prayer. Often French clergy are animated by a spirit of co-operative friendliness more than by sticking to the rules — prayer seems to them to matter most.

A London couple who, in retirement, decided to join the half-a-million or so British with homes in France, chose the tiny village of Maxou well off the beaten track north of Cahors.

The Romanesque village church opposite was receiving a government restoration as they worked in their house and garden. When the restoration was finished this beautiful church remained locked. The British couple persuaded the authorities to entrust them with the key, and the curé, who had nearly 20 villages in his care, became a trusting friend.

It seems to be a matter of course that these Anglicans are welcomed at Mass, for it is they who have made the church accessible and organised recitals of music at weekends.

When they returned to England for a family Christmas they arranged for the church to be floodlit even though, owing to the shortage of clergy, there were no services.

In many communities such quiet co-operation leads to grassroots ecumenism, sharing life’s needs, troubles and joys.

To quote the Abbé Huvelin again in some words he gave to von Hügel: “Our Lord won the world not by his fine speeches . . . it is necessary to act. Have no fear; act, love, you have an infinite need for expansion; constraint will kill you.”

Alan Webster is Dean Emeritus, St Paul’s Cathedral