Having seen that in 1818 many requests for missions had to be refused, the positive response to the invitation to Barjols stands out for the reason given that “our duty is to rush where the need is most urgent”
More than fifty pastors are asking insistently for a mission. To be somewhat fair in choosing, I think it necessary to consider the date of the request. However, I am inclined to give you preference. It seems to me that our duty is to rush to where the need is the most urgent.
They asked for us at Marseilles; we could expect consolation there, whereas at Barjols we must await only contradictions and difficulty;
but we will at least have the happiness of coming to help a good pastor’s solicitude for his lost sheep. If we were to gain from our mission nothing else than having struggled against hell with and under the direction of such a capable veteran as you, we would still have to congratulate ourselves on having done so.
Letter to the Pastor of Barjols, 20 August 1818, O.W. XIII, n.14
Our Oblate Rule of Life ensures that this spirit continues today:
Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. Constitution 5
This I love. This I deeply relate, respond to. “It seems to me that our duty is to rush to where the need is the most urgent. They asked for us at Marseilles; we could expect consolation there, whereas at Barjols we must await only contradictions and difficulty; but we will at least have the happiness of coming to help a good pastor’s solicitude for his lost sheep. ”
“Where the need is the most urgent.” “We must await only contradictions and difficulty.” I really believe this is such a big part of Eugene’s charism, his gift of the Spirit [of God]. It took me a long time to realise that in my life that I have consistently and actively sought out the poorest of the poor, those whom nobody else wanted to work with, or to be with, to love, to serve. Not something of my own doing for sure and that goodness had to have come from something or someone far greater than I. Perhaps it was because I could so very much relate and did not want anyone else to hurt as I have. But in truth it was/is I believe simply another gift from God. For it is God who has filled me with desires, God who has filled me love, God who has led the conversations and the dance. If there is any greatness in me it is simply and totally all from God. (I think that St. Paul had much to say on this and perhaps that is what comes to mind.) Then and still now I cannot always tell you why I am drawn to be with and to love those that I do except to say that I recognize in them a part of myself, but also in them I recognize Jesus. Love is just waiting to be set free – perhaps in us both.
“Wherever we work, our mission is especially to those people whose condition cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully bring. These are the poor with their many faces; we give them our preference. Constitution 5” This speaks so solidly and strongly to trying to live out the Oblate charism, the gift of the Spirit which comes from Eugene. Missionary – to be sent. I look at the “missionaries” who were sent – to me (and there were many) and I look at how God sends me. I don’t always recognize that and I don’t always see how if pertains even to the smallest and most ordinary parts of my day. But I trust that it does. We don’t always recognize our own God-given goodness and beauty. Perhaps that is why it is such a gift to see goodness and beauty in another – we share it somehow.