EUGENE AND THE RESURRECTION: I WENT IN SPIRIT THROUGH THE CHURCHES OF THE WHOLE EARTH, WHERE AT THE SAME MOMENT THE VAULTS WERE RESOUNDING WITH THE PRAISES OF THE RISEN LORD

Eugene continues to describe his joyful Easter celebration at the seminary:

I went in spirit through the churches of the whole earth, where at the same moment the vaults were resounding with the praises of the Risen Lord.
I was in Aix, I was in Rome, I was in China, everywhere I encountered the same transports of joy for the same reason. Not content with this experience of harmony with every Christian scattered over the face of the earth, I dared to penetrate heaven itself. I was not slow to grasp that all that captivated me here below was but a feeble echo of the joy, the inexpressible happiness, that animated all the blessed on that day that the Lord had made. How great is the heart of a Christian, how many things it grasps simultaneously, it seems at first as if the least consolation will fill it and it is about to burst; not at all, it is always capable of containing more, when full to bursting it still wants more, but this insatiable appetite will be satisfied only in heaven.

Letter to his mother, 4 April 1809, EO XIV n 50

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1 Response to EUGENE AND THE RESURRECTION: I WENT IN SPIRIT THROUGH THE CHURCHES OF THE WHOLE EARTH, WHERE AT THE SAME MOMENT THE VAULTS WERE RESOUNDING WITH THE PRAISES OF THE RISEN LORD

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    Yesterday I used the word ‘lavish’ and here I see a young Eugene who has been drenched in love, a love that is so vast it cannot be contained, limited or even explained. It can be experienced though and Eugene attempts to share his experience of his heart with his mother.

    Last evening over dinner I celebrated and shared the joy of a missionary who is being sent away from here and I may not see him again, at least not for a great while. I am quite unable to explain ‘why’ I love him so and will miss him, yet I am joyful for him because this is who he is, how he is called to be and how his heart will continue to grow. I can remember Peter Sutton saying to me that we would ‘meet in prayer’. It was the last time that I ‘saw’ him physically, we wrote and we talked on the phone. But he was/is among hundreds, perhaps thousands in my heart and my heart sees him quite clearly.

    This Easter has been a celebration of love, just as was Eugene’s. The love that I experience from and for so many continues to grow my heart, to stretch it beyond any walls that I could try to erect (but then why would I want to do that – for I will not settle for anything less than everything). God has carried me deeper and deeper into himself, but it is not enough. Always I hunger for more.

    “How great is the heart of a Christian, how many things it grasps simultaneously, it seems at first as if the least consolation will fill it and it is about to burst; not at all, it is always capable of containing more, when full to bursting it still wants more, but this insatiable appetite will be satisfied only in heaven.” This is our Easter experience! This is how we live it!

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