I HOLD OUT MY ARMS TO THESE LOST ONES, I OPEN MY HEART TO BRING THEM BACK BECAUSE I REALLY LOVE THEM IN JESUS CHRIST

Eugene’s diary reflection today was focused on his beng bishop of which he says,

I knew well that I would not be assuming a crown of flowers, but rather one with many cruel thorns. Some of them have lost their sharpness, but the burden increased with all the weight of the responsibility of a diocese…

His greatest suffering was to see how many of those living in his diocese were the “most abandoned” because they did not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. He felt helpless.

Blessed be God! I easily come back to the thought that with reason worries me when I consider that I am in the middle of a huge population of whom the greater number are rushing to their loss and it is impossible for me to stop them, neither by my words nor by my wishes. I hold out my arms to these lost ones, I open my heart to bring them back because I really love them in Jesus Christ, I pray continually for them. After all that I should be at peace. I cannot because I feel worse.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 8 May 1839, EO XX

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1 Response to I HOLD OUT MY ARMS TO THESE LOST ONES, I OPEN MY HEART TO BRING THEM BACK BECAUSE I REALLY LOVE THEM IN JESUS CHRIST

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    Sitting here with St. Eugene I recognize how his being was transformed and coloured with and by his Good Friday experience; Jesus on the cross dying for him – the ultimate love being expressed. That Good Friday cross was always before him as he looked through the eyes of our crucified Saviour and saw with perfect love; he saw and related everything in the light of that cross. “…I would not be assuming a crown of flowers, but rather one with many cruel thorns.”

    Eugene wore his cross inside and out – it was truly a part of him; Jesus on the cross was his most intimate companion throughout his life. Jesus whose life was to love as the Father loved. “I hold out my arms to these lost ones, I open my heart to bring them back…” He wrote about how Jesus on the cross was holding out his arms, inviting people to enter into that embrace of the love of God.

    “I really love them in Jesus Christ…” I think of my most imperfect love; crowded with doubts and questions, with likes and dislikes. Yet everything and all begins and ends with God, within Jesus, the heart of Jesus. It is only in him and with him and through him that I can love as I do.

    I think of that small emblem, that small image that I drew as my own coat of arms – before I was introduced to St. Eugene. A heart with cracks and small little holes and which were/are filled with light slipping and shining through from the inside out. At the top of the heart where the two halves come together a cross central – growing from that heart and there are radiant beams of light not only coming from within but all around the heart spreading outward.

    “After all that I should be at peace. I cannot because I feel worse.” Eugene looking at his own heart in the light of that, of God. A line from his Lenten Homily comes to mind as he asks those before him to “…look beneath the rags that they wear” and “…know then your dignity” Eugene’s vulnerability, the state of his heart – that is the cross. As my professor would say – that is “oblation”.

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