For the rest this wonderful paragraph that we cited above and which cannot be meditated on too much, is simply the development of what is expressed in a single line in article 1 the end of the Society. There it is said: The end of the Institute of the little Society of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, …is … to form an association of secular priests … living together and SEEKING TO IMITATE THE VIRTUES AND EXAMPLE OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, principally by devoting themselves to evangelizing the poor.
It is all there: seeking to imitate the virtues and example of our Savior Jesus Christ. If only one could engrave these words on one’s heart, have them written everywhere to have them always before one’s eyes.
Retreat notes, October 1831, EO XV n. 163
Eugene’s specific focus on the “virtues and example” was “He has sent me to evangelize the poor.” We, as members of his charism family, have received the same focal point: how do we bring the Good News of salvation to those who are most in need of hearing it?
There are many beautiful stained-glass windows in my church – big and small. One of the small windows at the top, front allows light to shine down onto the area around the altar is the Oblate Motto and my eyes seem always to stray towards it – a small fraction of a second that has become a touchstone and that is always before my eyes. Further down the church there is a large (and beautiful) stained-glass window depicting Our Lady, with people around her and more Latin wording; I have never really stopped and looked at it until a few months ago when I looked and noticed the writing on it. ‘Evangelizare pauperbus misit me – pauperes evangelizantur’. No whenever I am in the church I find a moment to look specifically at that window as well as the small one for it too has become a part of my consciousness. A living part of a bigger whole.
It is the same with the small Oblate cross that I wear (which I am so specific about only because I waited most of my life to receive this cross). When I feel the cross, when I look down upon it, when I touch it I am instantly reminded and focus on Jesus, the crucified Saviour. I am seeing through a specific focal point just as is my heart beating with the resonance of a specific drum.
One of the things that has always astounded me is how so very perfectly everything is a part of another, everything is connected with the other – in much the same way as our bodies have been created with the heart pumping rich life throughout our body in a continuous flow so that the arms will hold and the legs and feet will support. And there are other bodies that we connect to, through our heart, through the spirit of God, through the Church and through all of creation itself. There is a magnificent mystery in all of this; real, living, profound and without limits or walls.
Slowly God is imbuing my heart with all of these things, filling every nook and cranny so that as I live I am carried. I am recognizing this with my learning. It is as a ‘member of Eugene’s charism family’ that I have such life, it is how I try to live the virtues and example of Jesus. “…to form an association…” This is what I am a part of.
Awesome.