Saint Eugene will take a pause in writing new reflections until August 12. In the meantime there are 3115 daily reflections you can access from the home page (www.eugenedemazenod.net )
So St Eugene still speaks!
Instead of deterring young Oblates from volunteering for the foreign missions, the narratives of the Oblates, and all their hardships and challenges in making Jesus the Savior known, spurred them on to desire to be courageous missionaries themselves.
Nothing is comparable to the joy your letters afford me. One quivers on receiving them, reading and rereading them again and again ever with renewed pleasure, then one has them read to others until everyone is ecstatic. For do not believe that the description you make of your weariness and privation frighten those who long for the missions to the indigenous peoples. On the contrary, they are envious of your lot and beg me with even greater insistence that they may go and share it with you. You can be quite certain that I do not think of deterring them from so holy a vocation or of dulling their zeal. Far from that.
Letter to Fr. Pascal Ricard in Oregon, August 1848, EO I n 100
REFLECTION
When we listen to our elderly Oblates narrating the adventures of their missionary lives, we are inspired to want to emulate them and apply their spirit to today’s challenges. When we listen to our elderly Christians narrating the story of their lives as followers of Jesus, we are inspired to want to live by the same spirit today. How blest we are to have our elders!
What can I say of our men in Oregon and on the shores of the Red River? For food they have a little bacon, they have no bed but the bare ground, and with that they are content and happy as men who are doing the will of God. Fr. Ricard who was dying when he left has regained his health and the last time he wrote to me he said that he had not even had a day’s cold although he was sleeping at night under the stars and often lying in mud.
Those who are moving towards Hudson’s Bay, with cold weather registering 30 degrees, dragged by dogs across the ice, forced to make a hole in the snow in order to pass the night with the snow as their bed, delight one with the story of their adventures.
Letter to Fr. Étienne Semeria, 17 August 1848, EO IV (Ceylon) n 4
REFLECTION
When one is enthralled by the power of the Cross, everything is possible to endure!
Eugene encourages his Oblates in Oregon in their disappointment at being so coldly received by the bishop. He invites them to focus on what is the unchanging ideal of their vocation: oblation for the salvation of souls as is expressed in their Rule of Life.
Establish from the beginning the invariable ideal of your Institute and a rule of wise conduct, exact and uniform, to which each must conform. In your missions more than everywhere else obedience to the superior and fidelity to the Rules must be observed.
Your letter speaks of a trial, that is to say, of the behaviour of your Bishop, so ungrateful for the alacrity with which we have sent him personnel… For the rest, I see in this mission the finger of Providence and am not disturbed by this annoyance.
You belong too much to God, my dear children, not to offer Him this sorrow, with so many other sacrifices. You fulfil your great mission independently of the satisfaction which could have been afforded to you by greater cordiality on the part of the one who should alleviate your solitude. I have seen on the map the area you have to evangelize, with what interest I follow you in your apostolic journeys.
Letter to Fr. Pascal Ricard in Oregon, August 1848, EO I n 100
REFLECTION
To see situations through the eyes of the Crucified Savior is the Mazenodian way of reading situations. In this way we recognize the finger of Providence in all that we experience – and the strength to be able to persevere.
In 1847, Eugene had responded to the invitation of the local bishops to send Oblates to work in present-day Oregon and Washington states. He had chosen Father Pascal Ricard, one Oblate Brother and three scholastics for this new mission. It took them seven months of travel to reach Walla Walla. Four months later, two of the scholastics were ordained priests while the third chose to mission as a Brother. (see https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5355 and the following 9 entries)
After the difficulties of the journey, the reception from the Bishop was not very welcoming. Eugene complained about him to Bishop Bourget of Montreal:
I was going to say in confidence how little the Bishop of Walla Walla had responded to the alacrity with which I had, in his pressing appeal, furnished him with devoted missionaries. Having been provided, during the period that our good Fathers were on their way by sea, with what he thought would suffice, I believe he was annoyed to see them arrive. He received them in the first place more than coldly and does not appear to have become more amiable towards them since. What appals me is that the distance between us and these good missionaries means that they are going to suffer greatly before I can get to them the reinforcements which I had to presume this prelate would furnish since he had asked me for them as a great favour, his letter being proof of that.
Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 12 February 1848, EO I n 93
Bishop Bourget tried to calm the waters by responding: “I believe that Fr. Ricard and his confreres might well have been surprised by the cold manner of the Bishop of Walla Walla. But I hope that when they will have lived with him, they will better be able to judge the goodness of his heart. He is naturally serious and his manner is cold and even glacial to anyone approaching him for the first time. Besides you understand that in the sorrow one feels on leaving his fatherland and in the middle of the fatigues of a long and uncomfortable journey, one is not naturally inclined to laugh.” (Footnote in EO I n 93)
REFLECTION
Sometimes we can be very shallow about the way in which we speak about carrying the Cross. These four Oblates had responded to the call of the Crucified Savior through their oblation, and had sacrificed themselves to bring the message of salvation through the Cross and Resurrection to people who had never heard the Gospel. Their sufferings were redemptive. When we encounter situations of suffering let us never forget that the Cross is the doorway to the resurrection – we may not understand, but God uses us as instruments in these situations.
Fr. Telmon was being sent to Pittsburgh USA, and was hesitating because of his poor knowledge of English. Eugene’s reaction was to be the same towards all the Oblates who were sent to mission: learn the local language of the people!
How is it that all our Fathers in Canada have not made it their duty and their pleasure to learn English? We have thirty Oblates at the seminary and there is not one who is not learning this language. You should hear all these young men conversing. They speak nothing but English in their recreation periods. What does Father Telmon mean by protesting on the grounds that he does not know English?
This is a new mentality consonant with the republican spirit of our time. Formerly missionaries were sent all over the world; not one knew the language of the people he was going to evangelize. They set to with courage and they succeeded… So put your people to work at learning English.
Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99
REFLECTION
We Oblates pride ourselves that people always recognize us as being “close to the people” – the foundation of this is to learn their language. This, however, is more than linguistics. It is an invitation, which refers also to our own native language, to learn the lived “language” of the people: their values, their hopes and dreams, their sufferings, all that is important to them so as to be able to journey with them in Christ Jesus, and they with us.
I have received a letter from Fr. … [ed. name not given in the text] with which I am not pleased. Obedience is little or badly known to our Fathers in Canada. They know not how to submit themselves without complaining and they always have to put their own feelings ahead of the instructions of their superiors. This is a sorry state of affairs, diametrically opposed to the spirit and the letter of our Constitutions and indeed to the very essence of the religious spirit.
Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103
REFLECTION
Our OMI Constitutions and Rules remind us: “In the Superior, we will see a sign of our unity in Christ Jesus; through faith, we accept the authority he has been given. We will give our loyal support once a decision has been made and, in a spirit of cooperation and initiative, we will devote our talents, our activity, our very lives, to our apostolic mission in the Church.” (C 26)
It is not only vowed Oblates who have a Superior. In the Church all of us are called to listen to those who represent our unity in Christ Jesus .
And I thank the Lord doubly because I am more than ever convinced that in what has come to pass, divine Providence not only has your good in mind but that of the Congregation which you are called to direct towards the fulfilment of her duties in this part of the world…
Letter to Bishop Bruno Guigues, 25 August, 1848, EO 1, n. 101
Bruno Guigues may have become Bishop of Bytown, but he also remained the Superior of all the Oblates in North America. Having congratulated him, Eugene now got down to business.
Father Telmon had been appointed Superior of a new missionary venture to the USA in Pittsburgh, and he was raising objections. Eugene needed him to be reminded of his vow of obedience and of the confidence that he needed to have in the person of the Superior General who understood the bigger picture of the whole Congregation’s personnel and mission and had “the grace to assign work to each one.”
Whatever might be Father Telmon’s objection, you will reaffirm on my behalf what I wrote to him directly that I expressly put him in charge of this mission and, if needs be, in virtue of holy obedience, although it pains me considerably to employ this means, given that all members of our Institute like those of so many others should make it their duty to march forward at the first word of the father of the family, putting all their confidence in God and in the paternal blessing of him who has the grace to assign work to each one…
Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99
REFLECTION
Authority is not a popular word in our relativistic society. As Christians, we accept God’s authority in its many manifestations: Sacred Scripture, the magisterium of the Church with its teachings and guidelines, those who have been appointed our Church leaders, the faith of our fellow believers – all these expressions of authority contribute to the formation of a mature and well-informed conscience. Religious and priests, through our freely-chosen vow of obedience, have the responsibility to lead the way.
On the subject of being at the service of the Catholics of Bytown, we know it is quite repugnant to our Fathers to serve in a manner too similar to the parish ministry. They have been known to say on other occasions that they were made to be missionaries, not parish priests.
One should be able to organize their service as a kind of mission but in such a way that our Fathers might never be less than two together with a brother to cook their food; if they could be three or more, that would still be better; let us not overlook that the members of our Society wish and ought to live in community… we do not lack members but we must always take care to employ them in a manner consonant with their vocation.
Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103
REFLECTION
Bytown was the first place where the Oblates actually began a diocese and had to staff its parishes. They complained that the Oblate vocation was to be missionaries, not diocesan pastors. Eugene’s response remains pertinent today: Oblates in diocesan parishes approach it as missionaries, with the flavor that the charism gives it.
How sad it is to meet many people in Oblate-run parishes who do not even know that there is a difference between their pastor and other pastors – where OMI means little to them except that it always appears after their pastor’s name and nothing further. As members of the Mazenodian Family we have an identity to be proud of, to invite others to participate in and to give a missionary flavor to all we do in our parishes.
Eugene clarifies that even though Bruno Guigues was the diocesan bishop, he was living the Oblate charism and was to rely on this identity and spirituality to fulfil his new role.
The diocese which has been confided to you and the people who will form your flock, far from turning you away from your vocation, on the contrary establish you therein in a more perfect manner. You can well say now that you are by divine right the first missionary of this vast country of which you are the pastor. You are wholly by nature the superior of the missionaries who work under your direction; you are the chief who marches at their head. Were I in your position, I would change nothing in my habits, nor in my relations with those who are your brothers by vocation and your collaborators in the great work of the conversion of souls… Your missionaries and you then form but one and the same family, having only the same views, the same interests.
Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103
REFLECTION
There is an expression used in many countries that always applies. For example: “You can take a person out of Italy, but you can never take Italy out of that person.” This is the message of Eugene to the members of his religious family: “once you have embraced the charism that God has given you through my instrumentality, it always remains in you.”
With gratitude for all that St Eugene gives us today, let us live our particular vocations fully with that focus.
