IT’S A TRULY HEAVENLY JOY! A PERSON COULD PASS FROM ONE PARADISE TO ANOTHER.

Another glimpse into the busy life of Bishop Eugene.

A wonderful ordination of forty-three subjects. The ceremony was magnificent

There were eight new diocesan priests, among them one Oblate, Marie Cyr Chauvet.

Later, I went to the quarterly exercise of Saint-Rosaire-Vivant [the Holy Living Rosary],which this time took place in the church of Saint-Lazare.

The group (sodality) of le Rosaire-Vivant [the Living Rosary], owing to the initiative of Pauline Jaricot, foundress as well of the work of the Propagation of the Faith, counting in 1833 a million members. The goal was to recite a decade of the rosary each day and to work for the distribution of good books

I spent the entire day in this way in the church; in which better place could a person be? Concerning the ordination, I said to myself what has often been in my thoughts, that a person ought to be able to spend his life in fulfilling such grand duties. Could he not be happy to die in discharging them? It’s a truly heavenly joy! A person could pass from one paradise to another.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 30 June 1844, EO XXI

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1 Response to IT’S A TRULY HEAVENLY JOY! A PERSON COULD PASS FROM ONE PARADISE TO ANOTHER.

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    We love to be able to journey-with, teach, mentor, lead… all with the aim of fulfilling God’s plan for each of us. And if it leads our companions to follow in the same footsteps as those we have been called to walk in, then the joy is magnified.

    I wonder though, how many of us find ourselves thanking God that we have spent the entire day in a church, or wherever we have been planted, doing what God had called us to do and thinking of it as being a passing from one side of paradise to another?

    This is not just something reserved for bishops or clerics. And it is not just reserved for church buildings. It is wherever we belong as we serve in our love for God, for the Church and for all those we encounter in our vocation. This past weekend I experienced the quiet joy of being with my beloved parish community at all of the Masses, for each of the liturgies. It was my weekend to preach, which allowed me to also greet people as they entered and to check and see how they are doing, to catch the eye of a friend in the 2nd or 3rd row, and to serve them in other ways, by filling in as a Eucharistic Minister, or running the presentation that brings the responses and words to the screen at the front of the church. It enabled me to take time so that a man could share his response to my Reflection on the scriptures – so that we broke open the Word together after Mass.

    Hopefully others know the joy that I have experienced as they fulfill God’s plan for them in their lives, in their vocations be it in the Church, at home, at work… It is in that way that we can walk with Eugene, passing from one paradise into another.

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