Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together in charity and obedience to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him and their common mission in his Spirit. (Constitution 3)

Today we use the word “holistic” to describe the totality of our commitment. Eugene’s vocabulary for this same concept in the 1818 Rule, and later, was “charity and obedience.” In other words, “heart and head.”

To “imitate in everything the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles” meant a commitment to BE with heart and head.

Charity and obedience mirrored the two portions of the life of the Missionary. A total love of the Savior and an unswerving obedience to His will, on the one hand. At the same time there was the outward direction towards others:

They will all be united by the bonds of the closest charity, and in perfect subordination to the superiors, in dependence to whom they will live the exact practice of holy obedience.

1818 Rule, Part Two, Chapter One. Regarding other principal observances

The Missionaries were to be a united body connected by the bonds of Christian love and their attentiveness to the will of God as manifested to the community.

Heart: love one another and God.

Head: listen to God’s will as it is shown in one another, and especially in the Rule and through the one responsible for the guidance and well-being of the community.

The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together in charity and obedience to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him and their common mission in his Spirit. (Constitution 3)

The model of Jesus and the disciples is the model of how the Church functions, and the local parish, and the family, and any intentional group that comes together to live the familiarity of Jesus and those closest to him  in any particular situation. What a gift!

I belong above all and principally to this family for which the Lord has given me so much love and which is for me constantly and so justly an object of admiration… I will therefore always live in spirit in the most intimate union with them.

Retreat notes, May 1824, EO XV n. 156

The vision of St Eugene draws us together to live this model in an intentional way. Through the eyes of our crucified Savior we are called to recognize His call and presence. He forms us in our times of prayer and through the people and events of our everyday life.

Our loving Savior invites us to be his companions and messengers. This is the vocation of the Oblate Family, which we make our own as Oblates, as associates, as co-workers, as supporters and benefactors – as we express the beauty of our fundamental baptismal calling of being companions and messengers.

The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together in charity and obedience to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him and their common mission in his Spirit.  (Constitution 3)

From the first moment that Eugene proposed his Missionary vision, two hundred years ago, the fundamental model, or blueprint, that was to be followed would never be changed. Their entire missionary existence was based on that of Jesus and the apostles.

The pattern of the relationship of each one with Jesus, their relationships between themselves, and their missionary goals and methods had to be those of Jesus and his disciples as described in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles.

The missionary, being specifically called to the apostolic ministry, should aim at perfection. The Lord destines him to show forth anew, amongst those of his own time, the marvelous things that were done of old by the first preachers of the Gospel.

 He ought then to walk in their footsteps while being firmly persuaded that the miracles he must do are not the effect of his eloquence but of the grace of the Almighty who will communicate himself through him with all the more abundance if he is more virtuous, more humble, or, to say it all in one word, more holy

Letter to M. Viguier, 6 January 1819, EO VI n 38

The plan continues unchanged until today according to our state of life and circumstances.

Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14).

The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together in charity and obedience to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him and their common mission in his Spirit. (Constitution 3)

Meditating on the Oblate Rule, after having lived it for thirteen years, Eugene wrote:

I said to myself while meditating on our Rules that we would never be able sufficiently to thank the good God for having given them to us, for God alone indisputably is their author… I am no longer astonished… when I consider that the purpose of our Institute is the same as Our Lord proposed to himself when he came into the world. I come across I don’t know how many passages which are proof again and again of the perfection of our Institute and the excellence of the means it puts at our disposal to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and his Apostles. I could go on for ever on this subject.

 Retreat Notes, 1831, EO VIII, n. 407

An invitation for us to reflect, over and over again, on our call to be united with Jesus Christ in his saving work in all aspects of our lives.

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life.
Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14). (Constitution 3)

In responding to the urgent needs of the Church in southern France, Eugene asked himself:

What did Our Lord Jesus Christ do?

He chose a certain number of apostles and disciples whom He formed in piety and filled with His spirit; and after having trained them in his school and the practice of all virtues, He sent them forth to conquer the world which they soon brought under the rule of his holy laws.

Preface

This was to remain his model of formation and community life for always. The future Missionaries needed a period of training and formation in order to enter fully into the spirit of the missionary family. They had to BECOME in order to DO, as proclaimers of the Gospel. “Becoming” involved human growth, spiritual formation, and intellectual understanding to evangelise. The model was that of Jesus forming his apostles: “So they came to him and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Gospel of Mark 3,13).

Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14).
The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together (Constitution 3)

Having gathered the first members of his missionary family Eugene wrote their first Rule of Life in 1818.

After reflecting on the damage caused to the Church by bad priests, he launched into an impassioned reflection of the vocation of the missionary. NOTA BENE, he wrote: take note!

Eugene aimed to counteract the ravage caused by bad priests by holding up the ideal of what the Oblate Missionary is:

What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!
Their founder is Jesus Christ, the very Son of God;
their first fathers are the Apostles.
They are called to be the Saviour’s co-workers, the co-redeemers of mankind

 1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One. The ends of the Institute, §3. Nota Bene. Missions, 78 (1951) p. 15

Here in a succinct manner is the kernel of the Missionary vocation for all who are inspired to live by Eugene’s dream.

What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! He restates, in different words, the three foundation pillars of our vocation that he had written in our defining Article one.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! Their founder is Jesus Christ, the very Son of God

 The Congregation has its origin in the call of Jesus – he is the Founder. Each Missionary forms part of this body because of an awareness of a personal invitation from Jesus Christ.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! Their first fathers are the Apostles.

We are called into community. But not just as any community, but as a community that follows the example of the apostles. More than following, it is an insertion into the Gospel community of Jesus and the apostles and first disciples. It is a continuation of that community.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! They are called to be the Savior’s co-workers, the co-redeemers of mankind

The third pillar is the mission: that of leading people to the same experience of salvation that the Missionaries were living. Thus the short definition of the Missionary is: “co-operator of the Savior” – nothing less than a co-redeemer!

NOTA BENE. What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!

If our Charismatic Family lives this reality in a convincing way, what a missionary light our vocation calls us to! If we really live these words in their fullness, what a difference we would make to the world…  NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE!

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life.
Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14). (Constitution 3)

Henri Tempier’s reply to Eugene’s invitation was a source of great joy for Eugene. It shows the apostolic “one heart and one soul” that marked his relationship with Eugene:

“May the good God be blessed for having inspired you to prepare for the poor, for the inhabitants of our countryside, those who have the most need of instruction in our religion, a house of missionaries who will go and announce to them the truths of salvation.

I share your views completely, my dear brother… What you want most in those you choose as your collaborators is priests who will not get into a rut of routine and daily hum-drum… you want priests who will be ready to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles and work for the salvation of souls with no other reward here on earth but hardship and fatigue. I think that God’s grace has given me this desire. If not, then I wish with all my heart that I will have it, and working with you will make it all the easier to attain. You can, therefore, count entirely on me.”

Hneri Tempier to Eugene, 27 October, 1815 Cf. REY I, p. 183

A few years later, Eugene repeated his conviction that it is Jesus who calls us to imitate the apostles, a call that continues to this day for all of us in the Oblate Family:

Persuaded as I am that the good God has given you to us in answer to our prayers, that he called you like the Apostles with the most evident signs of a truly divine vocation to follow him and to serve him in the ministry which resembles most that which he prescribed for his apostles, with whose work he willed to associate you”

Letter to the scholastic Hippolyte Guibert, June 26, 1823, EO VI, n 109.

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life. (Constitution 3)

Returning to Aix as a young priest, Eugene put into practice the apostolic model that he had learnt and lived at the Seminary of St. Sulpice.

I have said that my intention in dedicating myself to the ministry of the missions to work especially for the instruction and conversion of the most abandoned souls, was to follow the example of the Apostles in their life of devotedness and self-denial. I became convinced that, in order to obtain the same results from our preaching, we had to walk in their footsteps and as far as we could, practice the same virtues.

Eugene’s Memoires, quoted in Rambert, I p. 187

Three years after leaving the seminary, Father Eugene used the model that had become his vision when he invited Henri Tempier to join him in:

an establishment which will steadily furnish our countryside with fervent missionaries. These will ceaselessly engage in destroying the empire of the demon, at the same time as providing the example of a life worthy of the Church in the community which they will form.

If presently we are not more numerous, it means we wish to choose men who have the will and the courage to walk in the footsteps of the apostles. It is important to lay solid foundations.

Letter to Henri Tempier, 9 October 1815 EO. VI n 4

Whatever our way of life, each of us is invited to live our baptism walking in the footsteps of the apostles with Jesus.

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life.
Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14).
The call and the presence of the Lord among us today
bind us together in charity and obedience
to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him
and their common mission in his Spirit.

Constitution 3

Why did Eugene insist on this so strongly?

From the first day when he entered the seminary in 1808 until he left it as a priest in 1812, he prayed several times each day in front of a painting of the apostles in the upper room with Mary.

Fr. Jean Olier was the founder of this seminary of St. Sulpice, about whom is written:

 “Adopting the view that the seminary was like the Cenacle where the Spirit of God would descend afresh to form apostolic men who would revitalize the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, it was M. Olier’s desire that all the clerics would take on the sentiments and attitudes of the holy Apostles and that they would become perpetual students of the Apostles’ virtues. He had them depicted […] in the chapel’s main painting so that the seminary would have recourse to them as to full flowing channels of apostolic grace whose first fruits they had received for future ages, and so that they should honor them with a special devotion as being, after Jesus Christ, the foundations of the Church […]” (https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/apostles/#_Ftnt2)

As I reflect on how Eugene, in his formation, unquestionably imbibed this spirit, I pause to reflect on what image it was that inspired me and molded me, and continues to do so.

And yours?

Our bicentenary celebrations have constantly reminded us of the truth of Eugene’s words that our Constitution and Rules

are not a trivial unimportant thing, they are no longer simple regulations, merely pious directions; they are Rules approved by the Church after most minute examination. They have been judged holy and eminently suited to lead those who have embraced them to their goal.

Letter to Henri Tempier and all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII n 226

As we continue to explore our Rule of Life, step-by-step, it is through the eyes of St Eugene that we look at it. What does he say to us through it? How does he communicate his spirit and vision to us? What is he calling us to be and do as he accompanies us, the members of his beloved Charismatic Family? For what is he interceding for us in the presence of God and the saints?

Since last year (https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5978 to https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=6203 ), we have been exploring our Rule of Life with St Eugene. We then interrupted our series to journey with Eugene in the events of 1825-1826. Now as we return to examine our Rule, we recap briefly.

I invite you to reflect one again on how each of us has been called by Jesus Christ

• • to share in his mission as his cooperators (C1)
  • to know him more deeply, to identify with him, to let him live in us (C2)
  • to see the world through the eyes of his Cross which leads those in need to the power of the resurrection (C4)
  • to proclaim him and his Kingdom to the poor and most abandoned (C5)
  • to recognize and love him in his body, the Church, and participate in its mission (C6)
  • to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church through various forms of witness and ministry (C7)
  • to always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations (C8)
  • to announce the liberating presence of Jesus Christ and the new world born in his resurrection (C9)

HOW TO DO ALL THIS?

Now as we continue our exploration we answer this question by looking at the two models offered to us in living our charism:

the apostles with Jesus (C3)
and
Mary Immaculate (C10)