I encountered among these poor prisoners whom I helped spiritually and materially… only grateful souls, hearts full of affection who responded perfectly to the caring charity that I felt for them
Diary, 31 March, E.O. XX
I have all my life desired to die a victim of charity. You know that this crown was withheld from me right from the first days of my ministry. The Lord had his designs since He wanted to trust me to give a new family to His Church; but for me it would have been a greater value to have died of the blessed typhus which I had contracted while serving prisoners.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 12 September 1849, E.O. X n.1018
I have entirely got over an illness that brought me to death’s door and from which I recovered only through the countless and very fervent prayers that were made for me to the good God in every quarter of the town…
It was at the barracks where some 2000 Austrian prisoners were held that I contracted what they call jail fever. On the morning of St. Joseph’s feast day I was close to the end…
Letter to his father, 17 June 1814, E.O. XV n. 126
Final perseverance, and even martyrdom or at least death while tending victims of the plague, or any other kind of death for God’s glory or the salvation of souls.
One of the intention for which he offered his first Mass, E.O. XIV n.100
We must help men to be reasonable, then Christians, and then help them to become saints.
Préface
Yesterday I spoke of touchstones of a different type. This morning I came here and thought of how this place, these postings are like touchstones of Eugene’s life, of giving oneself totally to God, of living as a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate.
I ponder the word martyr, immediately thinking of St. Stephen and St. Agnes, St. Joan of Arc and the Canadian Martyrs, of our Spanish Oblate Martyrs. They gave their all, their lives to God. And yet didn’t Eugene do the same thing? He gave his life, his all to God, to loving the poor who came with many different faces to his door. I have never thought of him as a martyr before and yet when I look at it, why not?
Which of us has not dreamed or at the least thought of and wanted to die for God, to give our all for love? Who has not entertained at least some thoughts of dying in a blaze of glory for our God, perhaps when we were younger, when we felt on-fire with the love of God? And even as I write this I think of Jesus and his own dying – crucified on a cross with common criminals – not exactly what we would call “going out in a blaze of glory”. Eugene whose first love would have been his family, being with his sons, in Aix, preaching missions directly to his beloved poor but who ended up in Marseille, as a bishop, and administrator. I think I could say a martyr to love.
And what about each of us? “We must help men to be reasonable, then Christians, and then help them to become saints.” This has certainly been my life, my experience and always I thrill to it when I read these, words. The spirit of them has been lived out by many, but I heard them from Eugene through an Oblate, to be lived out through his charism, as an Oblate.
I am sure at many points Eugene was cautioned and told not to go where he was headed. Yet he truly risked it all and gave his life. This morning I too want to dare and say why not?