By the middle of 1834 there were around 26 Oblates and 10 scholasticates in 5 communities: Aix en Provence, Marseilles, Laus, L’Osier in France and Billens in Switzerland.
At this time, the newly-appointed Bishop of Ajaccio, Corsica, Casanelli d’Istria, visited friends in Aix en Provence and met Eugene. In explaining the abandonment of the Church in Corsica: “poor parishes, numerous clergy but in general without formation, ignorant faithful, strife between families and clans,” he asked for help from the Oblates. Here were people who were indeed abandoned and who needed a relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior – and Eugene responded to the need.
I do not at all retract the promise that I made to support you with all my strength in the great mission that you must fulfil in the diocese that Divine Providence has just entrusted to your care.
Letter to Bishop Casanelli d’Istria, 19 September 1834, EO XIII n 83
Only 26 Oblates in 5 communities, along with 10 scholastics. Less than 10 years later Eugene would be responding to a call from the Bishop of Montreal and how he would continue to respond not only to that call but to others around the world.
I am reminded of St. Paul and then those he chose to be sent out to all the world. This did not look so very different that it did in the beginnings of the early Church. I think of Eugene himself wrote in the 1818 Rule, The Preface: “How, indeed, did our Lord Jesus Christ proceed when he undertook to convert the world? […] How vast the field that lies before them!” and further on: “We must lead men to act like human beings, first of all, and then like Christians, and, finally, we must help them to become saints.”
First written by Eugene almost 2 centuries after the Church began; and here we are 200 years later with the congregation still all around the world. Still this speaks to us, calls to us – Eugene’s first promise: “I do not at all retract the promise that I made to support you with all my strength in the great mission that you must fulfill in the diocese that Divine Providence has just entrusted to your care.”
In first reading these few lines from Frank and Eugene I wondered how this might apply to me; one of those workers who came later in the day to work in the fields of the Lord.
I look this morning through the eyes of an Oblate Associate, a member of the Mazenodian Family and what that means to me. There are still new ways of conquering the world, of sharing with others our own experiences of God just as they have been shared with us. We, some of the members of this family, come at a later hour and so the work to be done looks a little different perhaps. But it is all still there, along with the invitation to join in and be sent out.
Eugene continues to keep his promise through his sons and daughters.