CAN I FORGET THE SIGHT OF THE CROSS?

 

Can I forget the bitter tears that the sight of the cross brought streaming from my eyes one Good Friday?

Retreat Journal, December 1814, O.W. XV n.130

Can I forget … the sight of the cross?” asks Eugene?

Every action of his life, every time that he preached the Gospel, every time that he held out his hands to the poor and most abandoned, it was a proclamation of: “Never can I forget the sight of the cross!”

It is the only distinctive sign that he gave to the Oblates – under which every aspect of our lives is to unfold: “Never forget the sight of the cross!”

“Through the eyes of the Crucified Savior” is the only point of view through which the Mazenodian family is called to see the world: “Never forget the sight of the cross!

At the very end of his life, Father Tempier wrote to the Oblates: “It is not possible to tell you the example he gave, the sentiments he manifested during these three days [of preparing himself for the Sacrament of the sick]. We consider it a special grace to have seen and heard what we did. He cried out:

I am on the cross. I gladly stay on the cross and offer my sufferings to God for my dear Oblates

Circular letter no. 2 of January 29, 1861 in Oblate Writings II, vol. 2, no. 116. 

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“People have said that the cross of Christ was not a heroic thing, but I want to tell you that the cross of Jesus Christ has put more heroism in the souls of people than any other event in human history.”   John G. Lake

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2 Responses to CAN I FORGET THE SIGHT OF THE CROSS?

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    This defines us, this sign that Eugene has left for us defines us, each and every one of us.

    I sit here this morning with silent tears running down my face which give witness to my heart as it is opened wide by the words of Eugene and of Frank’s reflection. They are evocative to the utmost degree.

    Will I ever forget my first experience of God, the sound of His voice as he spoke to me, filling my heart which had become shrunken and shrivelled, bringing it into the light and filling it with life?

    Will I ever forget the face of my Most Beloved as I looked upon him on the Cross? His eyes full of all that lives and dies, of all that is. It has become engraved on my heart so that I see it and am touched to the very most center of my being. My heart turns to that image to ever behold.

    The eyes of Jesus, my crucified Savior. They colour my whole world for this has not been a ‘one-time-event’ but rather something that is always there, always before me. The Cross, the face of Jesus my Savior on that cross colours my heart and who I am, those that I see and meet through it and indeed somehow all of the world. I need only to look.

    I read again the words of Eugene and of Frank and Henri Tempier and touch that sign that Eugene left for us, touch the small Oblate cross which I wear, drawing it to my lips for a brief second.

    My most precious God never let me forget , give me the grace to never turn away from you, let me see through your eyes.

  2. ANDA says:

    Perhaps we, as a society, forget too much, too often. I know I certainly do.

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