After the mission, the pastor of Fuveau wrote to the diocesan authorities about the fruits of the mission:
Working people, forced to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, made the greatest sacrifices to obtain the benefit of hearing the Word of God … Our poor coal miners arranged their work so as to not miss any instruction … Among the fruits produced by this mission, the removal of blasphemy is the most remarkable … The missionaries have behaved with such piety, zeal and charity in the short time of their mission that they have acquired an undying right to the affection to the good people of Fuveau…
Rambert Volume I, p. 244-246
A couple of months later, the pastor wrote to Eugene, inviting the Missionaries to the parish for a return of mission. He wrote that 750 parishioners out of about 1300 had made their Easter duty. Euegene responded:
I was going to leave for Mouriés, very dear Sir, when I received your charming letter of April 25 and all the edifying things you tell me in it about the fervor of your good parishioners was a great source of consolation to me. I bless the Lord for giving you the strength to endure the excessive work that you had to do, and I rejoiced on seeing the ground we cultivated in hands as capable and faithful as yours. That recompense was due to your zeal for the salvation of your flock, all the more so because that was what we had been uniquely striving for; may God grant you the grace to experience that joy for a long time for only the Good Shepherd can measure and evaluate things.
I will do all that depends on me to respond to your invitation: all kinds of reasons attract me to you and your people; I have not at all forgotten your goodness and the value you seemed to place on the devotedness with which we worked for their salvation…
Letter to M. Chabert, parish priest at Fuveau, 23 May 1817, O.W. XIII, n7
“The missionaries have behaved with such piety, zeal and charity in the short time of their mission that they have acquired an undying right to the affection to the good people of Fuveau…”
I find myself recollecting the young Franciscan priest who accompanied me, listened and brought me back into the Church almost 45 years ago. He, in accordance with the will of God, walked with me, bringing me into the light of God, where I was filled with hope and life. My response was one of immense joy and gratitude. The Franciscans are firmly ensconced in my heart.
Today we find Eugene responding to a request from the same parish priest in the spring of 1817. He writes: “I rejoiced on seeing the ground we cultivated in hands as capable and faithful as yours. …due to your zeal for the salvation of your flock […] may God grant you the grace to experience that joy for a long time for only the Good Shepherd can measure and evaluate things.”
Today I think of the many of the parishes that the Oblates are turning over to the dioceses, due to the diminishment of the Oblates here in my part of the world. And though it is a sad (and a little scary) it speaks to the work that that they have started and strengthened and how they leave behind many Oblate Associates like myself and my friends. I pause and recollect how they have formed me, walked with me and shared their own experience of Eugene and his charism and of God’s love – as if to prepare us for what is to come. It is easy to give thanks to God for time in which we have been planted and the thought that we might be the fruit of the work of all those who have gone before us and walk with us now.
I think of the group over in Aix right now and what they are experiencing… I hold all of them in my heart if for no other reason than that my own experience of Eugene and the gift of the Spirit within his founding community, touched me – similar perhaps to the way that Fr. M Chabert and his parishioners were touched some 200 years ago. Not just a reward and thanks for the job they have done, but perhaps a renewal and restrengthening experience for the times ahead of them all.