We are a missionary Congregation. Our principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his Kingdom to the most abandoned.
CC&RR, Constitution 5
Pope Francis sheds light on our principal mission of proclaiming Christ:
“The primary reason for evangelizing is the love of Jesus, which we have received, the experience of salvation which urges us to ever greater love of him. What kind of love would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known? If we do not feel an intense desire to share this love, we need to pray insistently that he will once more touch our hearts. We need to implore his grace daily, asking him to open our cold hearts and shake up our lukewarm and superficial existence.” [Evangelii Gaudium n. 264]
In Pope Francis’ description it is easy to recognize the life and intense missionary experience of Eugene – and our desire to do the same.
“An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life.” Stephen Samuel Wise
Sometimes I would wonder as I read Eugene’s letters how anyone could be thinking so much and so often of God, of Jesus, crucified and resurrected. I would stop and wonder why there was such a preoccupation with the Church. Yet now it is what I pray for each day, what I work to become. It is not always conscious and yet that too I ask God to give me.
I think of who I am and how it was in hearing the voice of God, the voice of my Beloved saying my name, claiming; that I was (and am) led back to the Church – this Church which I so often can struggle with but which I cherish. She is a part of me and I of her and a connection point with all other. St. Eugene, his sons and daughters whose uniqueness and sameness of how we all live and be. And it continues outward, up and down and all around, and all a part of all. Such distinction and uniqueness all at the same time. And there is wonder as I think of how all is a part of the other. Wonder and awe and gratitude.
Sharing is such a common word and yet I look at what God has given to me, and shared with me and I am so blessed with this. I find myself wanting to share this with others and for others to share it with themselves – it is how we can recognize God and ourselves in each other. The beauty and life of that. It is all around and about and goes back to our love of Jesus, and God’s love of us.