EUGENE, THE YOUNG MAN IN SEARCH OF HIMSELF
© Laurent Girard / Studio Mazenod (2011) – Tableau du Jean-Jacques Martin
1802 – At the insistence of his mother, Eugene returned to France at the age of 20. His mother had divorced his father in order to regain the family wealth from the Revolutionary authorities who had confiscated the properties of the nobility.
Eugene threw himself into the lifestyle of a young nobleman. He had no sense of direction and one finds him alternating between a life of pleasure and a life of boredom with no future prospects.
There is not a single girl who suits me in Aix… And above all, the one I want must be very rich, and that is difficult to find.
Letter to his father, 10 May 1804, Mejanes Library Aix
How can one have enough of the pleasures that the charming city of Aix presents me with ?
Letter to his father, 27 January 1804, Mejanes Library Aix
Take all that into account, and you will see that one could die of pleasure in Aix..
Letter to his father, 18 January 1805, Mejanes Library Aix
It has to be said, this repugnance is also due to the fact that it is not in my character to spend my life planting cabbages. I have the feeling that I am not where I should be, and I get angry when I see the best years of my life draining away in idle obscurity. You can judge yourself if I should be bright and cheerful when you know that these thoughts go round and round in my head whenever I am alone..
Letter to his father, 12 April 1804, Mejanes Library Aix
WOW! – Eugene as a spoiled rich kid…
I am certainly not qualified to expound on any deeper meaning in this but I can comment on how it relates to me…
Here he was at 20 years of age living life in the lap of luxury and yet not comfortable in his own skin, searching. I was never “rich”, so to speak, but I never felt I belonged where I was at in life. I have even been told, on more than one occasion, “You seem like you are looking for something.” Eugene eventually allowed The Holy Spirit to engulf him and gave control of his life over to God. He instinctively knew what he had to do. I, on the other hand, was pig-headed; I had to be in control. I must say, I didn’t do a very good job. Only recently, finally, I was smart enough to hand control of my life over to God. I feel at home at Galilee. I feel like I am walking with my Friend, Jesus at my side instead of running off on my own path to some new dead end or disaster.
This is not to say I regret my past (well, some of it maybe, lol). I’m sure it all taught me something I’m not smart enough to recognize, and there were wonderful moments. But now I feel I am exactly where God wants me to be.
Thank you Jesus / Thank you Mary
John