IN TIMES OF DEEP GRIEF ONE NEEDS THE HEART OF SOMEONE ONE LOVES TO LEAN ON

Eugene, as the father-figure of his Oblate family, suffered with his family in their suffering. Humanly he needed support – especially at the moment of the death of Father Pons. Here he responds to a letter of support from one of his Oblates

My dear Son, I was telling Father Courtès that your letter and his did me a lot of good, because in times of deep grief one needs the heart of someone one loves to lean on. God’s decrees are inscrutable. They bring to nought each and every scheme that a most pure zeal for the glory of his holy name could devise. God opens up a vast field before us, he summons us to harvest it because it is ripe, we hasten to obey his voice. He proceeds to take the scythe from our hands, blessed be his holy name.

Letter to Casimir Aubert, 20 September 1836, EO VIII n 587

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1 Response to IN TIMES OF DEEP GRIEF ONE NEEDS THE HEART OF SOMEONE ONE LOVES TO LEAN ON

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:

    Inscrutable indeed – I find myself having to read these few lines from Eugene over a second time.

    I look at the death of Jesus, and how he gave his own mother to the apostles and the apostles to his mother. Family. And today Eugene has spoken of how he needed to let go of his work, all his plans and simply be with those in his family. Measurements of who loves more deeply did not enter into it – only the love of each other.

    Here he is talking with and thanking Casimir for his loving support, in the same breath as he thanks God for giving him Casimir and Fr. Courtes (and all the rest of his family). His words are not empty and insincere piety, but rather they come from his deepest reality; simply acknowledging how everything comes from God; how it is that God sees to our consolation.

    I think of our monthly Mazenodian Family Oraison that we purposely entered into yesterday, being in communion with one another, touching the hearts of others within the heart of Jesus. Real and transforming. Yesterday I began with the short reading from 1 John and as I read it and found myself singing “Something which is known” by the Weston Priory.

    Yesterday we let go of the scythes in our hearts and lives as we met each other in our prayer.

    Something which is known
    to have been from the beginning:
    this we have heard and seen with our own eyes;
    something we have touched
    and have carefully watched:
    the Word who is life, this we share with you.
    Alleluia, Alleluia;
    Alleluia, Alleluia

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