Finally, the episcopal appointment was made by the Pope.
The day before yesterday in the evening the Pope made the nomination; yesterday the minute was placed before him and he signed it; this morning the two briefs were transcribed on parchment.
Eugene spent much time in prayer. Writing in the third person to avoid the suspicions of the government, he wrote:
… However, I must tell you that patience and resignation have won the day and that our friend has found spiritual consolation and true interior joy in his solitude. He revels in the silence and peace that surround him. He fills in his time as piously as he can; he hardly ever goes out except when he must, finding everything he needs at home for the nourishment of his piety. He gladly makes use especially, quite frequently and for long periods of time, of a little gallery that opens out onto the altar of the Blessed Sacrament and, in fact, if God’s will were not that he should be otherwise engaged, he would abandon himself wholeheartedly to spending the days of his pilgrimage here below in this way.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 1 October 1832, EO VIII n 435
Eugene was facing a major change in his life and he prepared himself and coped with what was about to happen with spiritual consolation and true interior joy in his solitude in confident prayer. A good lesson for us all.
Isn’t it amazing how God prepares us, gives us what we will need for all that is ahead of us even when the light for our next steps is dim. We make the choice which is always there before us.
I look to my own experiences here on this trip as I prepare to fly home today. God has most certainly filled me, given me what I need to continue on the next steps of my journey, nowhere near the journey of Eugene and yet every bit as important for it is a part of my own pilgrimage of life. I have received the space and time to look within myself, allowing the light from life around me here to shine on my own steps – those that have brought me to where I am standing and those ahead of me.
Perhaps that is the lesson in all of this. To be able to find the light in the midst of the darkness. The darkness in the world around me has not changed as I would have wanted it to – yet within me, in the midst of the struggle and uncertainty ahead there is a small light which is filled joy and ‘connectedness to God’ (as expressed by Margaret Silf) – much deeper than just my feelings.