200 YEARS TODAY: I ANNOUNCE SUCH A HUGE MIRACLE

Writing from Amiens during his retreat Eugene announces to his mother:

I bid you now an affectionate farewell, dear mother, and hold you tenderly to my heart which is all yours after God. You know the ordination takes place on the 21st, the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. The Imposition of the Hands will probably be between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. A double dose of prayers that day.

Letter to his mother, 8 December 1811, O.W. XIV n. 96

 On the day of priestly ordination itself he wrote:

 Dear, darling mother, the miracle has happened: your Eugene is a priest of Jesus Christ. That one word says everything; it contains everything.
It really is with a sense of deepest lowliness, prostrate in the dust, that I announce such a huge miracle worked in such a great sinner as myself. Dear mother, I have not the strength to say more. Every moment is precious in the state in which the grace of such a tremendous sacrament has placed me; I have to stay in a state of total recollection to savour what it pleases God in his goodness to have me taste in the way of happiness, consolations, etc. 
What shall I say? the tears are flowing, or rather streaming down; they ought to flow for ever, as they take their source in the tenderest of loves and are simply the expression of a most just gratitude, a feeling I will bring with me into blessed eternity. 
I leave you now, dear, darling mother. I have three days still to get used to the idea that I am a priest and prepare to celebrate the divine mysteries… 
But I am finishing, with an affectionate farewell and with compliments on what I am. If I am but faithful, I will be your glory for all eternity! But that is a thought that would lead me too far afield. 
Goodbye everyone; I hold you all tight to my heart. And yes, I am going to continue, kneeling on my two knees before my crucifix, and give you all my blessing, begging the Lord whose unworthy minister I am, to bring your virtues to flower and perfection and pour out continually in your souls the abundant fruits of his grace, which he merited for us by shedding his blood on Calvary. May his peace, his holy peace, be always with you. 

Letter to his mother after his priestly ordination, 21 December 1811, O.W. XIV n.97

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