How OMI Lacombe province presents the characteristics of an Associate
I am writing this from Vancouver, where I have just completed a retreat weekend with 35 members of our Mazenodian Family in British Columbia: representatives of two lay associate communities who meet monthly, 5 Oblate missionaries, and dedicated people from four Oblate-connected parishes.
These groups exist as a direct fruit of the first Oblate evangelization of this area 167 years ago, and of our foundation 200 years ago.
Constantly ringing through my mind are the words of Eugene:
Charity for our neighbor is an essential part of our spirit. We practice it first amongst us by loving each other as brothers, by considering our Society only as the most united family which exists on the earth, by rejoicing over the virtues, the talents and other qualities that our brothers possess just as much as if we possessed them ourselves.
Letter to Hippolyte Guibert, 29 July 1830, EO VII n 350
When he wrote these words we were only a Society of around 30 Oblates. Today, that we are all over the world, we can easily replace Eugene’s word “Society” with “Mazenodian Family” – which he desires to be “the most united family which exists on the earth.”
I am constantly humbled and overjoyed when I encounter people, from all walks of life, who know and love St Eugene, and are nourished by his charism and spirituality – and live it in their personal lives and share it with others in their communities and in their service to the most abandoned. It is easy to recognize in them the same zeal and enthusiasm of the first community of founding visionaries in Aix 200 years ago.
It is a wake-up call to those of us who were the original bearers of the charism, and who are seemingly dying out in this part of the world: St Eugene’s charism is not “owned” by the Oblates. It is a charism belonging to the universal Church and is the gift and the patrimony of every member of the large Mazenodian family, in all its many forms and expressions.
The more convinced we are that each of us forms part of a large ecclesial missionary family, the more effectively will we be Eugene’s “most united family which exists on the earth” in the radiance of our lives and example and in the quality of our dedication to the evangelization and service of the most abandoned.
That is what various groups of people experienced 200 years ago when they came in contact with the life of the first community in Aix. Can the same be said of all our communities around the world today?
Eugene in his letter to Hippolyte Guibert; “Charity for our neighbor is an essential part of our spirit. We practice it first amongst us by loving each other as brothers, by considering our Society only as the most united family which exists on the earth, by rejoicing over the virtues, the talents and other qualities that our brothers possess just as much as if we possessed them ourselves.” Rejoicing over the virtues, the talents and other qualities’ that our brothers and sisters possess just as if they were possessed by myself. Somewhere along the way I have learned to rejoice in others. Lord what have you done to me?
When first I heard my Beloved calling me to “Come” I could only put one foot in front of the other – I walked as a blind person, not very sure of where I was being led yet I was filled with a kind of surety that I was walking as God would have me walk. And when I heard Eugene’s invitation to join him, like Mary I ask how this could be for I am neither male nor religious and yet again there was a surety that this was where I would find what my heart sought. Eugene’s founding vision 200 years ago – I don’t pretend to imagine that he could picture how it is now. But he opened his whole life and the life of his family to exactly what is happening today. Oblation. The Mazenodian Family, sometimes referred to as the Oblate family. I will not quibble. To be so loved! Those words – to be so loved. Gratitude. Immediate and immense, infinite gratitude. This has been a part of my founding vision. When I first felt that God was giving the Oblates to me as pure gift and me to the Oblates as pure gift I could not envisage how it could be. My response (after a deafening joy-filled ‘yes’) was to sit and reflect on being ‘so loved’.
I laugh softly to myself. It was to Canada that Eugene first sent his sons who became a part of our nation’s founding vision in a way. Here in Canada we are just a part of a much larger family, a family that is world-wide. We might look a little different from place to place – but our hearts – they all look the same – it is how we recognize each other – when we meet, when we come together in prayer and love.
Frank wrote: “The more convinced we are that each of us forms part of a large ecclesial missionary family, the more effectively will we be Eugene’s “most united family which exists on the earth” in the radiance of our lives and example and in the quality of our dedication to the evangelization and service of the most abandoned.” No longer exclusive we can all say that we are a part of a most inclusive family. Can there be any greater blessing!