Eugene’s letters to his father during the first few years of his return to France show a full immersion in the social life and values of the upper class of Aix. Their contents are full of social gossip about the people around him. The incident of his being snubbed by the Gallifet family gives an indication of the scale of values he had become entrapped in. He wrote to his father:
I’m quite on bad terms with the Galliffet family; they have pushed their discourtesy to the limit by not inviting me to a grand supper for more than 150 people they gave the last day of carnival. It’s not the supper that I regret, because I never sup in the world; but I find their determination to leave me out too impertinent.
So in the same manner I inflict on the old charlatan (he has the costume and the appearance) the punishment to which he is the most sensitive and which is renewed every day: not only do I no longer go to his home, which could be all the same to him, but I do not greet him when I meet him, which is all the more noticeable because I am polite and considerate to everyone except him, with whom I quarreled irreconcilably. Would you believe he cannot get used to this lack of respect. Oh, it was enjoyable at the beginning of his punishment! As soon as he saw me, he was quick to approach me with a graceful smile that seemed to require the response as he is accustomed to receiving from bystanders. I returned his gaze with a look of indifference which I then turned away as I turned my body away to present to the said gentleman its posterior view. Ah! If he had had been so graceless as to ask for an explanation for my snubbing him, what a retort I had prepared for him – that most wretched of men, what would not one be justified in telling him!
Letter to his father, 21 March 1805, Méjanes Library, Aix
In this outburst it is difficult to recognize the Saint Eugene who would dedicate his life to serving the most abandoned and socially excluded classes of people. His loving encounter with Christ the Savior would be the channel of God’s grace for an unimaginable life-changing transformation. It becomes an invitation to us, his Mazenodian family, to do likewise as we strive to see others through the eyes of Christ the Savior.
“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” Aristotle
A few ‘aha’ moments this morning.
Understanding why Eugene did as he did and feeling a lonely sadness that accompanied me as I read and reflected for which of us has not tried something similar at least once in our lives or even more often? And then perhaps being able to sit and remember times when we have been treated with the same disdain which Eugene showed to Monsieur Galliffet and his family. There is in that a dedicated effort to hurt and lessen another or a perceived slight or ancient hurt.
Much as it shames me to admit it, I have been on the giving end and the receiving end of such treatment. It hurts to remember how I treated others simply because I did not recognize my own dignity and so denied it to others. And not that I have earned the dignity in which I hold myself but rather it has been given me by God and I claim it. And it is only in letting go of my hurts and forgiving that I am able to stand in dignity and accord another, others the same respect and esteem and worth that has been accorded to me.
It is only in letting go and forgiving that we will be able to look and see through the eyes of Jesus, our crucified Saviour. It is only then that we can stand in our own dignity and allow others to do the same. It may be how we recognize the dignity of others before they are even aware of it themselves.
Love is the great leveler. Love is really the hidden trump card in the game of life.