Eugene was not content to remain sighing about the state of the clergy – in founding our Congregation he envisaged a concrete response to the situation. Part 3 of our first Rule (1818) dealing with the aims of the Oblates is entitled, “Reform of the Clergy”
Article 1. A no less important end of their Institute, an end they will as zealously strive to achieve as they do the main end, is that of clergy reform and of repairing to the full extent possible to them the evil caused in the past and still being caused by unworthy priests who ravage the Church by their lack of care, their avarice, their impurity, their sacrileges, their felonies and heinous crimes of every description.
Article 2. In the beginning, the missionaries because of their youth, will only be able to undertake indirectly the healing of this deep wound by their gentle suggestions, their prayers and good examples, but in a few years, please God, they will make a frontal attack on all these horrible vices. They will apply the probe, iron and fire to this shameful festering sore which is consuming everything in the Church of Jesus Christ.
Article 3. Consequently, they will preach retreats to priests and the Mission House will always be a welcoming refuge for them, like a health-giving pool where these putrid and festering sick persons will come to cleanse themselves and begin a new life of penance and reparation
1818 Rule
It is at this point that he fires up his pen and writes his passionate “Nota bene” and defines the beauty of the Oblate vocation – men called to counteract the evils in the Church by their apostolic vocation:
“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; and even though, because of their present small number and the more urgent needs of the people around them, they have to limit the scope of their zeal, for the time being to the poor of our countryside and others, their ambition should, in its holy aspirations, embrace the vast expanse of the whole earth.
The Church, that glorious inheritance purchased by the Saviour etc …”
Nota Bene (1818 Rule)
(In 1825 the Nota Bene was taken out of chapter three and put at the beginning of the Rule with the title: “Preface”)
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from the Nota bene (1818 Rule) |