Tempier’s letter and Jeancard’s persuasion eventually did the trick and Eugene succumbed to the pressure and wrote the required letter to the King.
My dear Tempier.
This letter will be brought you by Jeancard who will tell you orally everything we discussed together. Even so I’m giving him a letter for you, though it isn’t my intention to scold you for the bad humour you were unable to hide in the last two items of our correspondence. I understand that you could be upset at finding me resistant to certain plans you have set your heart on; however, the motives I adduced were sufficiently well-founded in reason and especially in religion to turn aside any annoyance at my resistance.
I see in the letter I got today that your anger hasn’t cooled down yet… However, you must have received my letter, sent on the 27th from Gap, in which I wrote out for you what I was proposing to write to the King. It has been dispatched and in all probability will be in his hands the day after tomorrow; I hope he will find it satisfactory and the first stage of our business will soon reach a satisfactory conclusion.
Eugene underlines the important point:
Jeancard will tell you in what sense I agree to the matter of being coadjutor and do not want a diocese. It is that if I have misfortune to lose my uncle, no-one would force me to accept the succession.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 31 August 1835, EO VIII n 539
Tempier knows Eugene well and loves him dearly; and because of this love he is able to get past some of Eugene’s mention that ‘he will not scold Tempier for his bad humor and the plans that “Tempier” has set his heart on! What Eugene does not mention though is what God has in mind for him, where God would have him be.
There have been times in my own life when I have told myself that I have given everything to and for God, and yet still I hold on to many big and small hurts and struggles. I hurt only myself and those who love me when I continue to wear my woundedness as some kind of armor.
I look at Eugene and even at my own behaviour sometimes and find myself singing from the Gethsemane lyrics from “Superstar”.
Like the immense love of the Father beckoning to Jesus, it is here also calling to Eugene. I see that love mirrored in the eyes of Tempier, Jeancard and the others as continue to love and support Eugene, even when it means they must give up and carry him through some of the smallest steps he must take.
This is the love that we find in community – no matter the role we play, or the place we sit in. For me this morning’s reflection has been all about God’s infinite love – not just for Eugene but for all of us. Even when I try to ‘dig my heels in’ on matters of woundedness or seeming lost dignity – my reality is the immense love of God for each of us which only strengthens and endures when I struggle against remain within the tenderest of embraces.