Communication was slow in Eugene’s time and he had heard a rumor that his closest companion, Henri Tempier, had been dangerously ill. This letter shows how badly Eugene had taken the news and the sensitivity of his heart. A few years earlier he had suffered the illness and loss of two of his close collaborators, and he had remained scarred by the experience. See https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=3261
There’s no need for me to tell you all I’ve suffered these last several days. Everyone was saying you were dangerously ill. You know me well enough to understand how I felt with this dagger plunged deep into my soul. From the 25th September until October 6th this martyrdom was mine to taste. Towards the end, I was no longer in the land of the living.
Your letter puts me at rest. Let us say no more about it; what an amount of suffering you would have saved me by one single line from your pen! But I forgive you everything. There is nothing but love in my heart. I thank God for not submitting me to any worse test than this, heart-breaking and excessive though it was.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 9 October 1835, EO VIII n 548
We can certainly identify with his experience – let us be grateful for the relationships we are privileged to have.
This morning I find myself looking at the many I love and how the love does not lessen as another comes into my focus. I think of how I am fond of saying to those who know me of how I have ‘fallen in love’ with yet another and another… Like Eugene’s heart ours know no limits unless we allow ourselves to turn away and stop loving. And is that even possible?
Eugene in all his trials and struggles never stopped loving. He might have turned inward for a while and made it necessary for others to pick him up and carry him – but he never turned away from God, never lost touch with the divine that was within him.
Eugene with his heart as big as the world – modelling his life on that of our crucified Saviour; seeing life once again through the eyes of he who is perfect love and yet human. God within us.
Rather than looking aghast at how I can forget from time to time just how greatly I am loved, how I am given all that I need and even more; today I begin again filled with hope and please God some wonder at all that I am given. Isn’t it wondrous and awesome – the ability of our hearts to love as they do! To stretch and grow and able to contain those who we love so very dearly while at the same time loving the rest of the world. This has to be God within us, for how else would it be possible?
“This is the day the Lord has made; let all the earth be glad.”