As the centers of mission increased and developed, Eugene took particular care to communicate regularly with the superiors so as to ensure that everything was done in uniformity with the spirit of the Congregation, and for the good of its overall mission. Writing to the superior of the newly-founded community in Nimes:
I took your letter yesterday to the Bishop, very dear Father Mie; he read it before me and appeared to be touched by the sentiments that it expresses. This very commendable Prelate, so filled with desire for good, asks nothing better than to employ you, according as your zeal seems to wish.
The prolonged parish missions in the Provencal language usually only took place in the winter months between October and April. During the rest of the year we find the communities concentrating on shorter evangelization and renwal activities like retreats. This seemed especially the case in Nimes.
He expresses his concern that the inexperience of Honorat may lead him to risk the success of two retreats they were conducting. Mie was an older and experienced preacher, and he would be a better choice in a situation where all were waiting to judge the newly-arrived missionaries:
In the meantime I see with some sorrow that our very dear Father Honorat is putting himself in front, both at the retreat of Saint-Baudile, and at that of the men at the cathedral. He has not worked sufficiently on his instructions for him to risk himself in a great city especially at the beginning of our establishment. That must be prevented. You know the solidity of the principles of this dear Father, one can say anything to him without fear; acting only for the sake of God, he refers himself with simplicity to all that is prescribed by obedience.
Letter to Pierre Mie, 19 June 1825, EO VI n. 183
To Honorat himself, he wrote:
I said to Father Mie that I would not have wished you to give sermons in the retreat which Brother Guibert had accepted. This was not suitable for several reasons. I was not keen on your being heard at Nimes before having done more work on your instructions and before having them corrected in the light of remarks that others of the family would have made to you. It was also very important to do the retreat for the prison inmates properly.
Letter to Jean Baptiste Honorat, June 1825, EO VI n. 186
For another type of retreat that they were considering, Eugene advised Mie:
You should therefore undertake something else at that time and take as excuse, to refuse, that we have not yet begun this kind of ministry and that we can collaborate and be engaged in such only after a general policy has been adopted for the whole of our Society.
Letter to Pierre Mie, 19 June 1825, EO VI n. 183
“The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” Tony Dungy
Once again there is so much here – layers that can be discovered and brought into the light.
Prayer, discernment, guidance, careful listening, respect, openness to risk, openness to recognizing and evoking the gifts of others and an openness to sharing one’s self with others – these qualities, these ways of being seem to be a part of what it takes for a person to be a leader. These same qualities also allow us to first follow and if called to lead. Always that giving of self. There is no control.
I am thinking of Jesus this morning and how he led. He did not walk in front of but rather with and amidst his followers. This brings me to the Eucharist – the giving and the receiving or perhaps I should say the receiving and the giving. This was what Jesus did, how he lived and died and rose from the dead. I am thinking that this is also how Eugene lived -Eugene was certainly a very human leader, sharing what he had received, what he knew to be the whole and big truth -the love of God and living that out fully.
This too is what we are called to live, called to be.