OUR FOUNDING VISION: THE MISSIONARY AS A FRAGILE VESSEL

The missionaries were fragile persons and not all was rose-colored in their life.

Those who have been accepted into the Society may be sent away only for serious reasons on the request of the superior plus a two-thirds majority voted assent of the other Missionaries.

Request to the Capitular Vicars of Aix, 25 January 1816, O.W. XIII n.2

The expulsion of the 25 year-old Auguste Icard put this prescription into practice just a few weeks after it had been written. In the Register of Admissions to the Novitiate, Eugene made a note next to Icard’s entry that “reasons of major importance” obliged him “shortly after to notify Icard he was no longer to consider himself a member of our Society.”

In 1823, Emmanuel Maunier and Sébastien Deblieu also left the Missionaries to be diocesan priests elsewhere.

Three of Eugene’s original five first companions did not persevere! Indeed the disciple is a fragile vessel.

FOUNDING VISION

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”   Neil Gaiman

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1 Response to OUR FOUNDING VISION: THE MISSIONARY AS A FRAGILE VESSEL

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    The Holy Spirit works in so many wondrous ways! I awoke this morning and thought of the Israelites as they made their way through the desert. So many times did they ‘turn from God’ and God through Moses would call them back. There were big graven images of idols – other gods that they would turn to when they felt fragile, broken, filled with doubt and struggles. They were quite blatant about it – they were honest about it. And I thought about myself and how I turn to idols. It doesn’t look the same as it did with the Israelites – perhaps I am a little more sophisticated? For when I turn away and give in to ‘the flesh’ it is not in ways that others can see – it is hidden in the dark, like the night. I remember in AA we would talk about ‘stinking thinking’. It is not always pleasant to come face-to-face with myself and see how human I am, how fragile I am.

    This morning there is a small ‘forgive me’ as I sit here and reflect. I repeat it in my mind a few times, as if to cover the small sorrow that has arisen as I reflect. Not shame or guilt, but sorrow over my weaknesses, my humanness. (I know and believe that God forgives me I trust in that and perhaps that is my strength.)

    I think of Eugene and how he persevered through many times in his life. I know only from some of his writings what it was like for him. I remember of some of the times he wrote in his diary during his retreats – of how he would seem to ‘return’ to God. Perhaps the grace of perseverance is not in charging through most perfectly and being true to whatever God has called us to. Perhaps perseverance occurs when we stumble and fall and then rather than giving up we pick ourselves up (quite often we are ‘picked up’) – broken and vulnerable we ask God for his mercy, his love and we continue on. That is where the grace is. Our strength is in our weakness.

    When first learning about “Saint Eugene de Mazenod” – being told that he was a very human saint. Hearing that he was a very ‘human’ saint – I was drawn to that. I got excited about that and received a lot of hope. We are all fragile vessels, all pots made of clay, that break and have big and small cracks. A wild and improbable thought – God never gives up on us, never turns away. There is perseverance – absolute; possible only with love.

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