200 YEARS AGO: NOTA BENE – DRESSING HIS MISSIONARIES FROM HEAD TO TOE

“It is only after having dressed his missionaries from head to foot in this solid armor of virtue that Bishop de Mazenod allows himself to say to them: then, full of confidence ….”

YENVEUX, A. Les saintes Règles de la Congrégation des Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée d’après les écrits, les leçons et l’esprit de Mgr. C.J.E. de Mazenod,
Paris, 1903, vol. 1, p. 17

To answer the question as to what the Missionary must do in order to become an apostolic man – a co-operator of the Savior, Eugene spells out the “virtues and examples of our Savior Jesus Christ” that they must “strive to imitate:”

We must work seriously to become saints, walk courageously in the footsteps of so many apostles who have left us such fine examples of virtue in the exercise of a ministry to which, like them, we are called;
renounce ourselves totally,
maintain in view exclusively the glory of God, the building of the Church, the salvation of souls;
renew ourselves constantly in the spirit of our vocation;
live in a habitual state of self-denial and
in an unremitting determination to achieve perfection,
working unstintingly to become humble,
gentle,
obedient,
lovers of poverty,
repentant,
mortified,
detached from the world and our families,
brimming with zeal,
ready to sacrifice our goods, our talents, our rest, our persons and our lives for the love of Jesus Christ, the service of the Church and the sanctification of our neighbor.

1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One, §3. Nota Bene.
Missions, 78 (1951) p. 16

This entry was posted in WRITINGS. Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to 200 YEARS AGO: NOTA BENE – DRESSING HIS MISSIONARIES FROM HEAD TO TOE

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    What beautiful “responses” these are; to God, to the Church, to the poor… This is how we can look, how we can dress ourselves, what our oblation can look like when we surrender ourselves to God, to immense love.
    In becoming like the apostles, as co-operators of the Savior we hold all things in common and there is no need to look and dress better than another. Our excesses shall be in how we love and will appear as compassion, gentleness and caring.
    I think of Mary and the apostles and what they wore following their receiving the Holy Spirit, the essence and spirit of Jesus crucified and resurrected. And then what it looks like today to be “ready to sacrifice our goods, our talents, our rest, our persons and our lives for the love of Jesus Christ, the service of the Church and the sanctification of our neighbor.” The wonder of it all is that in taking on these virtues and living them we lose nothing but actually gain everything.
    This how I wish to live, to be. I have sampled the opposite way of life and found it to be empty and sour – never did it fill me – never did it satisfy me. But living in the manner that Eugene proposes and demands – in the context of today, this is what I want, this is how I wish to become.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *