After a few days of illness, Eugene’s father, President Charles Antoine de Mazenod died on the 10 October 1820. The biographer Rey recounts that “Father de Mazenod showed an admirable filial piety. He devoted himself with an infinite dedication to relieve his father in his bodily infirmities and provided him with spiritual help in religious matters.” (Rey I p 256 – 257). Eugene himself wrote:
How touched I have been, my dear friends, by the concern that you have manifested for me in the sorrowful circumstance of the death of my venerable father… His was a most edifying death. Please God I can hope to terminate my life in such beautiful sentiments.
What consolations religion brings in this supreme moment to the man who lives by faith! It is quite evidently beyond nature. What peace, what holy security, what sweet confidence, but also what avidity to hear words about God, what gratitude for his benefactions, what humility! It was beautiful and heart-breaking at one and the same time. He is asleep in the Lord who will take into account his many virtues.
Letter to the young oblates and novices at Laus, 24 October 1820,
O.W. VI n.55
“In this crazy world, there’s an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they’re never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.” Henri J. M. Nouwen
A month tomorrow will be the 1st anniversary of my father’s death. He was a man who had much pain in his life and who was incredibly violent. Yet, he was also a man who, when I was very young, carved my name in the inner wall of the tabernacle he made for our church- so that God would watch over me. Sometimes when he talked about Jesus his smile was beautiful – free and somehow an image of what was going on hidden deep inside of him. In later years he had dementia and very little memory left. He was lonely and he did not remember his children or the horrors that we had lived through. He loved it though if you touched him and rubbed his arm, if you blessed him & made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and he loved to receive the Eucharist.
When he died I found myself both sad and glad. He was the only father I had, and for all the bad there was also good. I think that he was in such pain most of this life, so in death the time for joy finally came to him. When I see him now the image is of him with that incredible smile – it fills his face. There is sadness sometimes when I think of him but at the same time great joy for he is where he most ever wanted to be.
The grieving and the celebration, the death and life, the poverty and riches, the mourning and the dancing. The power and powerlessness of forgiveness and love. I could quote the writing from Richard Rohr’s offering today. We all seem to be on the ‘same pages’, both then and now. How awesome is our connectedness in God and with each other. I find myself filled with gratitude at this brief glimpse of the fullness of life. How might I give witness to that today?
“In this crazy world, there’s an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they’re never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.” Henri J. M. Nouwen
What a amazing quote from Henri and a beautiful story of a son at the death of his father. It is his humanity that comes forth and it shows his admiration for his father and his love. The two of them went through so much. Leaving Provence, the struggle through out Italy and then separation for years and his arrival back to France where Eugene was the one who helped him out. Eugene was his fathers son and in some way this relationship also played out with in the community.
The letter Eugene writes reads as a love letter about his father. And given that Eugene is one we pray to intercede for families with difficulties, it would seem that their life/relationship may not have been an easy one. But as Nouwen writes, the pain/suffering and the love are not separate but one. It is not an either/or but a both/and. The quote by Nouwen is indeed amaing, and as he said, in the eyes of God, (and within each of us), the good/bad times are not separated. And for Eugene, it seems it was also about community, for he says he is touched by their concern for him. So it is with us, we are not separate nor alone, but always a part of the whole of creation and community. How beautiful.