Eugene writes to Fr Honorat, at Notre Dame du Laus, to announce the death of the 26 year-old Oblate, Jacques Marcou.
The good God has just taken from us, my very dear Father, one of our most saintly missionaries. Yesterday at four o’clock in the afternoon our truly blessed brother went to take possession of the glory that our divine Master has promised to the faithful servant who dies in the peace of the Lord.
I would have wished that all the members of our Society might be present at the inspiring departure of a pure soul who is going to be united to his God for all eternity. What a holy death! He kept perfect consciousness until the last sigh which had been preceded immediately by this touching word: “Beautiful heaven!” expressed with the sweetest accents and a celestial smile. I have no doubt that this holy religious, this dear and beloved son, perceived in that moment the place that he was going to occupy at the foot of the throne of our good Mother who has assisted him in a tangible manner in this last passing; also with what tenderness of devotion did he bring to his mouth and over his heart the image that I presented to him five minutes before he expired. He has been miraculously delivered of all anguish and fear. It is evident that heaven was assured to him. He was sure of arriving there by the protection of our Mother and the sovereign mediation of our divine Master.
Letter to Jean Baptiste Honorat, 21 August 1826, EO VII n 251
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” George S. Patton
My small littleworld has been rocked this morning and not comfortably either. Between Richard Rohr and his ‘paradigm’ shift and Eugene’s language that I want to blow off as being so ornate that they must be the ravings of a mad man, I find myself wanting to pull away from both. My comfort zone has been rocked. Without Rohr’s message I would most likely have read Eugene’s account of the death of Marcou as simply being extremely dramatic and affected. I would have perhaps simply ignored or discounted it. But because of the one I cannot ignore the other. There seems to be something larger here, something that I must let go of and just sit in the mystery of it.
There is nothing that I can do to ‘figure’ it out on my own. I can’t think my way through it – not life with the Trinity that Rohr talked about, nor what Eugene described when he wrote “…our truly blessed brother went to take possession of the glory that our divine Master has promised to the faithful servant who dies in the peace of the Lord.”
In thinking of the many I have known and loved and who are now dead I know that I am a better person just for having known them and being a part of their lives. As is often the case it has been in losing them that I have realised the great loss that their dying presented me. Perhaps what I am mourning is that I did not know them better for there is a sense of loss there. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate them when there were here on earth because I did. But perhaps I was not as open to all that some of them were (because I was busy seeing how they mirrored with myself) – a missed opportunity. Perhaps that is what I mourn.
All that I can do is treasure my memories of them, and thank God for their time here on earth. Perhaps that is what George Patton was talking about.