THE GREAT PRIVILEGE OF OUR MOTHER, QUEEN AND PATRONESS
Father Dassy had written a book and had consulted Eugene about whether to use the Oblate crest in the printed version. The response gives an idea of the fluidity of our name. It always had “Oblate” and “Mary Immaculate” in the title but it was expressed in different ways. See the article “Oblates of Mary Immaculate” in https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/oblates-of-mary-immaculate/
I do not think it necessary to put our coat of arms on the book’s frontispiece. I see it sufficient to indicate the author by your position as priest at Notre-Dame de L’Osier as you style yourself; but at the bottom of the dedicatory letter you should put your full and complete name, with your true and complete title of Oblate of the Immaculate Conception written out in full: in Latin you should put: E Congregatione Oblatorum B. V. Maria sine labe conceptae, for that is the title given us by the Apostolic Letters of our Institution. This beautiful title has but one defect, it is a bit too long. It is impossible to use in French: “of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without the stain of Original Sin.” It should be shortened into of the Immaculate Conception, an expression which the Church has adopted to state the great privilege of our Mother, Queen and Patroness, an expression which is, besides, the heading of our Constitutions.
Letter to Father Louis Toussaint Dassy, 8 November 1843, EO X n 822
Today our title is “Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate” – a name we carry with honor and pride as our “Passport to heaven”, as Eugene had written in 1825:
Oblates of the Immaculate Mary. But this is a passport to heaven! How have we not thought of it sooner?
Letter to Henri Tempier, 22 December 1825, EO VI n 213
Eugene “seems to become aware of the fact that, even if he had always loved Mary, he had not yet understood the essential role she played in the plan of Redemption. In searching for the patron who best expressed the goal of his Congregation – that is a person walking in the footsteps of Christ, committed to the apostolate of service and to the instruction of the poor – he had not thought of Mary. While in Rome, he understood who Mary really was. The title of the Congregation was thus born from a discovery that, in order to respond in an authentic way to the urgent needs of the Church, its members should identify with Mary Immaculate “to offer themselves” to the service of God’s plan of salvation like she did.” Casimir Lubowicki, “Mary” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values, https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/mary/
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When I first began my journey as a member of what we now call the Mazenodian Family I spoke of the “Oblates”, but soon learned that there were those who would gently correct me: “The Congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate” they told me, the full name. One of the first things to attract me was the inclusion of Mary in the title for I had a strong devotion to her on my own: for me she was an integral part of what it meant to be Oblate. And because names are so incredibly personal, the name was important to me for all those who carried it.
I struggled more with the term “missionary” only because I thought that missionaries were people who ‘went’ to a foreign land, and I knew nothing about being called or being sent. What a novel idea and I reflected upon whether or not God was ‘sending’ me to be here, as an ordinary lay women who just happened to be madly in love with the Beloved and eventually with an entire congregation made up of men, priests and brothers. The only surety that I held was that God had given the Oblates to me as gift and given me to the Oblates as gift.
It took some time for me to learn and accept a calling from God, for I did not immediately feel I fit into any of the molds offered by the Church for non-religious. But so strong were the urges and desires within me that I persevered on the course that I believed was set out before me. I could do no less than give it my all. At times it still seems to be a struggle but a struggle which carries joy in the memory of an Oblate calling me a missionary.
I continue to find myself reflecting on whom God is sending me to. After all it is all pretty ordinary, this way that I live; simply a part of my breathing in and breathing out each day.
Imagine – being a member of the Mazenodian Family with its members who “identify with Mary Immaculate to offer themselves to the service of God’s plan of salvation like she did.” Heady, not in the sense of deserved or merited, but rather in the sense of joy in discovering where I belong and to whom.
My name is Eleanor, and I am a lay Oblate Associate of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and a member of the Mazenodian Family.
There are some names that just say it all.