MY CHIEF OCCUPATION WILL BE TO LOVE HIM, MY CHIEF CONCERN TO MAKE HIM LOVED

After his return to Aix as a young priest, Eugene lived in his mother’s house, together with Brother Maur (Trappist monk whose monastery the revolution had detroyed). A couple of months after his arrival, he did his annual retreat. As he outlines his meditation program he outlines what will be the core of his approach to people as a priest: to lead others to share in his same experience of being loved by God and loving in return. The events of the rest of his life showed that he remained faithful to this ideal to the end.

I will meditate on Jesus my love in his incarnation, his hidden life, his mission, his passion and death; but especially in his Sacrament and Sacrifice. My chief occupation will be to love him, my chief concern to make him loved. To this I will bend all my efforts, time, strength, and when after much toil I have succeeded in winning but a single act of love towards so good a Master, I will rightly consider myself very well paid.

Retreat notes, December 1812, O.W. XV n. 109

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1 Response to MY CHIEF OCCUPATION WILL BE TO LOVE HIM, MY CHIEF CONCERN TO MAKE HIM LOVED

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    This morning I spent time first of all with his diary entry of 1825 when he was in Rome. I found myself distracted by it, saddened in part by some of what I read. Now I sit back I see it from a small distance. Eugene was most certainly a man of his time, a man raised as a noble and I find that reflected in some of what he said and wrote, just as I can be found in what I share each day. But he most certainly loved God with every ounce of life he had.

    Today is the anniversary of his ordination as a priest and here I am reading his own words of what it means to him to be a priest. “I will meditate on Jesus my love in his incarnation, his hidden life, his mission, his passion and death; but especially in his Sacrament and Sacrifice. My chief occupation will be to love him, my chief concern to make him loved. To this I will bend all my efforts, time, strength, and when after much toil I have succeeded in winning but a single act of love towards so good a Master, I will rightly consider myself very well paid.” Dear Eugene you succeeded to live your dream more than you would have imagined possible. I read this and found myself almost comparing myself to you because I could relate to some of what you said. That I a lay person and a woman would dare to say that I am sure would raise eye brows but there it is. Like you I have received riches beyond compare, totally unearned just given. Pray for me that I might learn more from you and how you lived. It is a wonderful day to celebrate the anniversary of your ordination, even if it be a little bitter sweet in my life, as a female lay person who asks to walk with you and your Oblates. Pray for me Eugene for unending patience and the strength to continue on with hope rather than weariness. Lend me some of your energy and drive. Pray for me Eugene just as I shall continue to look to you for guidance. Today I shall continue to walk in your footsteps as I am able, not waiting to be allowed but rather just doing it. When did you ever wait for it to just happen? Happy Anniversary Eugene, to you and all of your Oblates.

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