Eugene writes to his longtime friend, Forbin Janson who was also a bishop who had had problems with the government and his diocese.
We are above all and essentially men of the Church.
Eugene reminds him to keep focused on the essentials in the midst of his difficulties. These essentials are: love for the Church as the People of God, and a dedication to ensure the eternal happiness of these people.
The salvation of souls is our special vocation. It is the work towards which we must tend with all our efforts, the accidents that God permits should not check the ever supernatural action of our onward march, we must draw back only before what is sinful, everything else has to be surmounted, overcome because of the excellence of the end, and it must be said, out of duty.
Letter to Bishop Forbin de Janson, 11 December 1835, EO XV n 180
An invitation to us as Mazenodian Family to focus on what really counts: God and the welfare of God’s People.
Both Eugene de Mazenod and Forbin-Janson had plenty in their lives to distract them and pull them away from that which they had been called to, to wear the cloaks given to them.
I think of the light that Eugene sheds on each of us who are called to share in his charism. That light that seems to highlight our own ‘special vocation’; not the light that draws us away to greener pastures or higher positions, simply the light that illuminates the ordinary of our lives.
The cross is not far from my thoughts this morning as I reflect on both Eugene’s and Frank’s invitations to all of us in the Mazenodian Family; to be true to our special vocations, our calls from God and how we live that out in the light of St. Eugene.
I began my reflection singing the words from Bernadette Farrell’s “Bread for the World”:
Bread for the world
A world of hunger
Wine for all peoples
People who thirst
May we who eat
Be bread for others
May we who drink
Pour out our love
Lord Jesus Christ
You are the bread of life
Broken to reach
And heal the wounds
Of human pain
Where we divide your people
You are waiting there
On bended knee
To wash our feet with endless care
Lord Jesus Christ
You are the wine of peace
Poured into hearts once broken
And where dryness sleeps
Where we are tired and weary
You are waiting there
To be the way which beckons us
Beyond despair
Lord Jesus Christ
You call us to your feast
At which the rich and pow’rful
Have become the least
Where we survive on others
In our human greed
You walk among us
Begging for your ev’ry need
Bread for the world
A world of hunger
Wine for all peoples
People who thirst
May we who eat
Be bread for others
May we who drink
Pour out our love
We sing this hymn during Communion at our liturgies but it takes on a new depth and reality as I repeat the words this morning. There is within me a small whisper of delight for God continues to call us out of darkness to stand in a most particular light.