GOD KNOWS WITH WHAT CONSOLATION I BAPTIZED THIS CHILD, SO JUDGE WHAT MUST HAVE BEEN MY SORROW TO BURY HER

Writing to Henri Tempier about, his niece, Caroline de Boisgelin’s death and funeral, Eugene confides his feelings:

… God knows with what consolation I baptized this child, so judge what must have been my sorrow to bury her. However, that was what the Lord gave me courage to do yesterday. My uncle wished to accompany her also to the place of burial. The Bishop of Nancy, Bishop de Forbin-Janson, took him in his carriage. I was myself in the mourning carriage which preceded the hearse on which was borne the remains of this dear one, this innocent and pure creature. It was at the Calvary of Mont Valerien that I went to depose her in the shadow of the cross…
There is no limit to sorrow when one loses the object of so much hope, a child destined by grace to an extraordinary degree. God willed it, that’s all one can say.

Letter to Henri Tempier, 28 June 1825, EO VI n 189

 

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

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1 Response to GOD KNOWS WITH WHAT CONSOLATION I BAPTIZED THIS CHILD, SO JUDGE WHAT MUST HAVE BEEN MY SORROW TO BURY HER

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    There is not much to say about Eugene’s sorrow save to acknowledge it. Eugene was never the stoic and so he shared his emotions with those around him.

    “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” There is something very powerful in this statement. I am thinking of what Richard Rohr wrote this morning and how as humans we tend to ‘sin’. We never have the full picture, we never know all sides of a person and so we judge on the little we do know, or remember. And it seems easier and more common to remember the pain rather than the peace. I am thinking of some of the most hated men throughout history – all we know of them now is their heinous deeds. How will I remember people I have known and who have died. How shall I speak of them, specially if they have hurt me. I would do well to practice with the living.

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