The father of the Oblate family expresses his joy because of the younger members who are preparing to become Missionaries. He rejoices because of their obvious generosity, their missionary zeal and their desire for religious perfection.
As you know, you are the hope of our Society; so you can understand my happiness when I contemplate you progressing in the ways of the Lord, full of passion for what is good, burning with holy zeal for the salvation of souls, devoted to the Church, scorning and trampling on all that undermines perfection and compromises salvation.
Then it is that I exult with joy and pride myself at having you as children.
Letter to André Sumien and the scholastics in Aix, 18 March 1823, EO VI n.96
“It is an awesome thing to comprehend the magnitude of the fact that what a person dreams and imagines can be realized.” Vanna Bonta
My thoughts today are taken up with Tom Cassidy, OMI who died yesterday afternoon. It has been a hard struggle for Tom and for those who knew and loved him. It is never easy to see one you love struggling with pain and that final ‘letting go’. Yesterday of having the privilege of praying one last time and giving voice to the Rosary since he could not, and of being able to remind him one last time that he was now held by Our Lady and that she would accompany him home, of gently reminding him of how good and loved he was by all of us and how he truly was giving his all for his Savior.
When I received word there was that part of me that cried, knowing I will miss being and talking with Tom, this man who was a friend and a support and a bit of mentor in some ways – I loved Tom and it is hard to let go of someone we love. I would have liked a few more years of the that living friendship with Tom. And there was that part of me that immediately thanked God because Tom was now safe, at home, no more suffering, with his God to whom he had given his life. I wondered if Eugene was there to welcome him, to open the doors so to speak (just as did the bishop for Jean Valjean at the end of Les Miserables). A father greeting one of his sons and welcoming him home. As you said Frank; “He rejoices because of their obvious generosity, their missionary zeal and their desire for religious perfection.” and as Eugene himself wrote; “Then it is that I exult with joy and pride myself at having you as children.”
So today, it is with perhaps tears, and sorrow that the whole Mazenodian Family celebrates the life of Thomas Cassidy, OMI, priest, brother, uncle, teacher, historian, canon lawyer, friend, who found it in him a way to live and give his all to God through his Church, with his Oblate family, community. We exult with joy and pride in your life Tom and we thank you.
Dear Frank and the de Mazenodian Family;
So good to be back on line with you all.
I am doing formation program this week with other religious, so when I read this entry I copied it and sent it to the novices and told them that my sentiment were that of the founders and that I was proud of them and held them close to me heart in prayer.
Maybe we all need to share these feelings of the heart with each other. We can do it, our founder did and we share his heart.