In the process of discernment, Eugene placed the situation of establishing a second community and its implications before all the Missionaries. His Memoires recall:
I felt that I should summon to an extraordinary council, all those who then comprised my little band, even the younger members who were not yet in major orders. I wanted to convince them that if we were to answer the call to another diocese to establish a new foundation,
we should have to broaden the Rule we were following,
draw up more extensive Constitutions,
tighten our bonds
and establish a system of hierarchy;
in other words, coordinate everything in such a way that we should have but one mind and one code of action.
They all felt as I did and urged me to devote my time earnestly and immediately to the task of drafting the Constitutions and Rules that we should have to adopt.
Bishop de Mazenod, “Memoires.” Cited by Rambert, I, p. 282
At this stage all the attention was focused on taking on the ministry of the Marian Shrine of Notre Dame du Laus. As we shall see later, the question of the passage to religious life would become a “hot potato” for some of the Missionaries who were diocesan priests.
Leflon continues the story:
The Council meeting, surpassing all his hopes, approved his plan unanimously. The unanimity, however, resulted from ambiguity. Everyone approved the proposals but not everyone discerned their real implication. Regarding the necessity of modifying the Rule in order to deal with the new situation and guarantee the unity between the motherhouse and the new foundation, the proposals were very explicit, but, regarding the crucial issue on which opinion would be divided, they were merely implicit. The Founder used the words, “tighten our bonds,” but he did not clarify their meaning, made no mention of vows… Leflon II, p. 158.
So important was this principle of unity in thought and action to Eugene, that he wrote it in the opening page of the 1818 Rule of the Missionaries – and it would be repeated in every version of the Rule thereafter:
The example of the saints and reason itself make it clear that it is necessary, in order to maintain good order in a Society, to establish certain rules of life that unite all its members in a common practice and a common spirit; it is this that gives the body its strength, maintains its fervour and insures that it endures.
Avant propos, Règle de 1818
I wonder if at times that “hot potato” does not continue to cause us difficulties.
In North America, my reality now, we have in the past become the diocese in some areas (for the sake of mission) and in others places we began to “look and live” like the local diocesan clergy, (no judgement on their calling) but we are not diocesan clergy. We are part of a de Mazenodian Family that continues to grow and change like ever other family.
And here too what does that mean? explicitly and inexplicably!!!!