LOOKING AT THE SUFFERING MEMBERS OF OUR CHURCH WITH THE EYES OF CHRIST THE SAVIOR

Why did Eugene become a priest?

As we have seen, a second motivation in his decision was his wish to respond to the suffering of the Church. It was not a “feel-good” motivation, but one that came as a result of his “Good Friday experience” which was in ongoing communion with the original Good Friday at Calvary:

The Church, that glorious inheritance purchased by Christ the Savior at the cost of his own blood, has in our days been cruelly ravaged.

Preface

It was a Church which he understood as being a “great family”:

The idea that I am a member of that great family of which God himself is Head… seems to instantly make my soul surge, with an intensity that is difficult to express.

Notebook, May 1804, EO XIV n 7

The intensity of living “this marvelous communion” led him to experience its pain when some of its members suffered:

all the members of the mystical body of which Jesus Christ is head, the caput, feel and participate in the sufferings as well as the victory that each member suffers or wins.

Letter to Emmanuel Gaultier de Claubry, 23 December 1807, EO XIV n 22

Decades later he recalled:

During my seminary days, I had the thought of making myself as useful as possible to the Church, our Mother, for whom the Lord had given me the grace always to have a filial love. The destitution in which I saw her had been one of the deciding motives for my embracing the priestly state. I had recognized this vocation from my adolescence, but could not follow it then, due to the events of the dreadful Revolution, which forced my family to transfer unexpectedly from one country to another during the entire course of our emigration, which lasted ten years in my case. After I had returned to France, I was pained to the depths of my soul in seeing the service of the altar despised…
I thought I would be able to postpone further to respond to the appeal of grace, and, whatever the obstacles I encountered in my family, and the distress of my flesh and blood that made me feel so keenly the pain I caused to the people I loved most in this world, I tore myself from their tenderness and I left for the seminary of Saint Sulpice, convinced that it was time to sacrifice myself for the faith.

Mémoires, quoted in Rambert I p 47

As Bishop of Marseille, he would often invite his people to solidarity with the other members of the Body of Christ who were suffering and in need. Today we are constantly bombarded with news and images of our fellow-Christians in need. What effect does this have on us?

 

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”   Henry David Thoreau

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2 Responses to LOOKING AT THE SUFFERING MEMBERS OF OUR CHURCH WITH THE EYES OF CHRIST THE SAVIOR

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    Here Eugene recalls his flight from France during the great French Revolution – recalls the effects of having to flee from place to place simply to stay alive and the cost that had on him and his response to God’s call to serve his Church which was being decimated by the revolution. And he speaks of tearing himself away from the tenderness of his family so that I might join another, a greater family.

    I think in my own life of how God allowed me to come back into his Church, indeed how he himself seduced me with love as he led me through doors that I had thought closed to me because of my life. I was quite unable at the time to entertain thoughts of ‘family’ for those kinds of thoughts were simply not a part of my world or life. But years later, on the other side of country I would realise that my parish had become for me in my heart, my family. It was only as my heart integrated all that makes up this Church that is mother to us all that I was able to feel very much a part of it.

    It is the very tenderness of God in and through this great Church that I am able to live and grow and become. And it does not stop at walls of religion it is large enough to hold all peoples. It has been powerful in showing me that all of humankind is a part of one large family of God.

    As I read what Frank has written I wonder if I am being a little unfaithful to my Church. He wrote; “As Bishop of Marseille, he would often invite his people to solidarity with the other members of the Body of Christ who were suffering and in need. Today we are constantly bombarded with news and images of our fellow-Christians in need. What effect does this have on us?“ I find myself thinking of all those who are fleeing from tyranny and hatred, for as I read his words I did not confine myself to thinking of Christians . Even as ‘the members of the Body of Christ’ was mentioned along with ‘suffering and need’ the images in my mind were of all, Christians, Muslims and all others and I realise as I write that my beloved Church is quite universal. So maybe I am not a heretic after all. I am quite afraid to try and set up any labels or walls because if I do I am afraid that it will not stop and that I will get into a ‘we-you’ type of thing and there will be blame and hatred and bitterness. It does not take much to get me going. The images that I see hurt me more than I can express. It is a sorrow that goes deeply because another, many others are suffering so greatly. I refuse to push away that sorrow because I do not want to become immune to it. There is little that I can do (aside from helping out with local refugee groups) but the call to pray is stronger than ever. The call to be a part of a world-wide group who pray is greater than ever.

    I find that I have gotten a little side-tracked from what Frank has written and led us into. Today is the 15th anniversary of the canonization of Eugene de Mazenod, St. Eugene. I will celebrate with joy and pride this great day even as I think of and pray for and with so many who like Eugene have experienced the need to flee their homes and all that they had simply to live. I thank God for his great tenderness and ask over and over that he have mercy on all of us.

  2. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    I realize as I pushed the ‘post comment’ button – that this universality/one humand-kind is the only way that I can be Catholic or Oblate – it’s an ‘all’ kind of thing.

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