Poor Eugene, following the ministry of the Oblates and physically incapable of participating himself! A man of big pastoral dreams and seemingly endless supplies of energy – and here he was now at the end of a year that had hammered him emotionally and physically.
Instead of feeling better, he complained that he was feeling worse now than he had five months before, while recuperating in Grans.
Letter to Jacques Jeancard, 14 December 1829, EO VII n 341 These years of suffering were not in vain because Eugene was to emerge from them as a more rounded personality to whom the words of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross could be applied: “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.” |
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Eugene has always seemed to be a figure who was larger than life – with unlimited energy. Passionate, strong, a natural preacher who loved what he did and who did it so well, who loved so greatly. As Frank mentions that this was the end of year that had ‘hammered’ Eugene and was most obviously still feeling that the image in my mind is that of his heart and of its walls that were cracking and falling – walls dissolving, vulnerability and openness being set free.
There is a woman I know who I have come to love quite dearly and her name is Germaine. She is bound in a wheelchair (so that she will not fall out of it), unable to speak clearly or ‘do’ much of anything and she has been like this all of her life. She has seen people look away as she is pushed in her chair into their midst, and has experienced people not speaking to her but to the one who accompanies her. To know her is to love her. She is a bringer of joy to us, well to me. It is not a matter of looking at what she can’t ‘do’ as it is a matter of recognizing ‘who she is’. Incredibly beauty. I am inclined to think that she has suffered greatly in so many ways and has risen above that for to sit with her is to sit in peace.
I know from my own suffering that it is hard and seems to require that I ‘let go of everything’ that society and our ego seem to prize so greatly. We, each of us, suffer at some point or many points throughout our lives – we don’t quantify it because for each of us – we are suffering, struggling, knowing defeat, loss and yet we emerge out of it as being beautiful. I think of Germaine who is loved by so many and whose beauty comes from within herself. During this reflection I have had small glances of Jesus moving towards the cross that he was to die on and of his love and suffering. I like so many others have suffered greatly, but I can’t say as I find myself beautiful. What it has done for me though is that it has enabled me to share with others and recognize their incredible beauty.