Within months of the beginning of the Oblates ministry at the sanctuary, they were able to see results with an increase in the number of pilgrims and a deepening of their devotion.
Like you I have offered praise to the Lord for the graces bestowed on the house of l’Osier. It is with much satisfaction that I hear from you once again that devotion at the sanctuary is on the increase and growing in depth.
Then Eugene underlines the reason for this: the quality of the religious life and witness of the missionaries. It is the result of their regularity and fidelity to their Rule of Life which ensures faithfulness to their vocation and to the Savior who called them.
It is God’s way of rewarding your zeal and devotion. Interior regularity and your fidelity to the Rule have brought you this grace that you are enjoying. Keep on without wearying…
Letter to Bruno Guigues, 9 October 1834, EO VIII n 489
The following day, Eugene wrote again to express his joy and satisfaction:
I am lost in admiration at all you tell me. Give thanks for it to the good God and the Holy Virgin, and continue to make yourself worthy of this powerful protection, by an exemplary life and diffusing abroad the good odour of Jesus Christ and giving signal proof that there are yet men who, amidst a general demoralization that infects even the clergy, have known how to understand the ways of this divine master and to follow his counsels faithfully.
Letter to Bruno Guigues, 10 October 1834, EO VIII n 490
We are not always blessed with knowing the fruits of our labours. We do not always know how we have touched another, of the role that we have played in their lives – big or small.
I think for a moment of Blessed Joseph Gerard and how he was never able to convert the many he loved most in Lesotho, and of the many early Oblates here in Canada who though being able to Baptise many – it was not all. I think of some who are up in the far north and who do not always get to see the fruits of their labours. I note with all of them though – in the past and those here now – their fidelity to the Rule of Life, their ‘regularity’. Amidst all of the triumphs and hardships, their lives were and are a witness to Jesus Christ who is their model.
This morning is an invitation to look back on my own life and give thanks for those whom God has sent to me; to walk with me on our journey. It is through Eugene’s many sons and daughters in this Mazenodian Family that I hear: “I am lost in admiration at all you tell me. Give thanks for it to the good God and the Holy Virgin, and continue to make yourself worthy of this powerful protection, by an exemplary life and diffusing abroad the good odour of Jesus Christ and giving signal proof that there are yet men [and women] who… have known how to understand the ways of this divine master and to follow his counsels faithfully.”