NURTURED BY AN OPPRESSIVE YEAR OF GLOOMY MONOTONY

In January 1798, the 16 year-old Eugene and his father and uncles arrived in Naples.

My stay in Naples was for me an oppressive year of very gloomy monotony. I did not have my good friends the Zinellis any more, I no longer had a fixed task, relationships suited to my tastes and inclination. I can say I wasted my time there.
What a sad existence for a young man of sixteen, to have nothing to do, no idea what to fill his time with, know no one, be unable to see anything, except the church, where I went to serve my uncle’s Mass! The explanation lies in the sad situation to which so many years of emigration had brought us. The money my mother’s diamonds had furnished us with had to be eked out. Hence, no teacher. I was too young to be left alone in a town like Naples, and my father and uncles had so little curiosity that they left Naples, after a stay of a year, without having seen anything or visited any of its environs.

Diary of the Exile in Italy, EO XVI

This begging letter from the former President de Mazenod (who, a few years before, had had 12 servants in his house in Aix) shows Eugene’s changed situation:

“Your past kindnesses embolden me to expose my situation to you frankly. I have foresworn my country forever. I own nothing… My family is made up of four people, that is, my two brothers… my son and myself. By collecting all we own and by means of the strictest, most rigid frugality, all I have left is enough to provide meager nourishment from now until the end of July. Beyond this into the month of August, we will be faced with nothing and be without any resources whatever. Misery and the most abject destitution are our only prospect.”     Letter of Eugene’s father to the Count d’Antraigues, 9 January 1798, Méjanes Library

Another building brick in the edifice of Eugene’s spirituality: first-hand experience that contributed to his outreach to the poor and to immigrants in later life.

Is my spirituality formed by life experience, or by theories in books?

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“The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.”   Samuel Smiles

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1 Response to NURTURED BY AN OPPRESSIVE YEAR OF GLOOMY MONOTONY

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    “Another building brick in the edifice of Eugene’s spirituality: first-hand experience that contributed to his outreach to the poor and to immigrants in later life.” And what does the building of my spirituality look like? I find myself most comfortable these days with nature and so even now that is what comes to mind. And so this morning my thoughts turn to towards the image of something that goes deeper in order to grow up and out. Like the spreading roots of a magnificent tree that has grown down and out every bit as much as it’s branches have grown up and outwards. Oh! I have just realised the whole thing about a tree and it’s leaves and letting go and dying only to be have new life. Unexpected joy at this small gift.

    I have been blessed with a world of experiences, lived realities and it is from these that I have learned and grown, my experiences are what have taught me, have fed me. And the book learning which has been slow in coming to my life has then helped me to frame those experiences, and see how they relate to all of life.

    As a child growing up I pictured myself as being like a robot, I had a body and could see and speak, but the inside was empty of anything, no life and so much of my life was made up of the daily motions of doing what I was supposed to do, but completely without life. It is a deadly way to be because what life appears to offer is not really life at all. I have a quite particular love for those who are hard to love, those who do not know what it is to be loved and who are going through the daily monotony and grind of their lives with a slender thread of hope that they cling to.

    All this to say that I do not know much about book learning or theories, but the richness of all that is life – that I have experienced and continue to experience. I am a part of all that I have met.

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