Having received the approval of all the Missionaries to take responsibility for ND du Laus as a center of mission and the go-ahead to write a Rule of Life for them, Eugene set out from Aix to go to the family home at St Laurent du Verdon with the scholastic brothers Marius Suzanne and Noel Moreau. They travelled by public horse-drawn coach. He described the journey to his uncle Fortuné.
It shows the spirit of unity between the Missionaries.
Our trip, very dear uncle, was very agreeable, very happy and not at all tiring…
Our Fathers at Aix are always present in our thoughts and in our solitude we make our religious exercises in union with theirs.
Letter to Fortuné de Mazenod, 4 September 1818, EO XIII n 17
There is something very real in all of this today. A spirit of unity. I picture Eugene moving forward – the image is that of the statue of him that can be found in the General House chapel and at the Klokoty church in the Czech Republic. He is not on his own – he is with so many – united in heart and spirit.
At a day retreat years ago we were asked to envisage the Last Supper and our place in it – did we find ourselves as observers, did we enter into it and sit at the table and if so where. I want to do that this morning but first need to visit the Historical Dictionary to learn more about Noel Moreau and so I pause…
Hidden depths as I meet this young man who with Marius Suzanne joins Eugene as he writes a Rule of Life for their society. A new vista opens before me of yet one more member of the founding community, of one of the first companions of our Founder. Moreau was not larger than life, he was a man who struggled and who remained faithful. He was one among many – the ordinary growing into and becoming extraordinary. That same spirit of unity among the missionaries. I can picture Moreau striding behind and with St. Eugene.
I think this morning I would like to sit beside Moreau of whom Fr. Jean Corne wrote: “A man of the interior life, loving and keeping to his cell, showing up infrequently outside, a man of pleasant company, brimming with gentleness…”
I am grateful for the introduction and there is consolation within me this morning for none of us in alone in our journeys – there is a spirit of unity within the family.