As these reflections will pause until 13 January, I wish each of you a Happy Feastday for December 8, a fruitful Advent and all the blessings of Christmas.
We ask Mary Immaculate to accompany us during this period:
Mary Immaculate is patroness of our Congregation. Open to the Spirit, she consecrated herself totally as lowly handmaid to the person and work of the Savior.
She received Christ in order to share him with all the world, whose hope he is. In her, we recognize the model of the Church’s faith and of our own.
We shall always look on her as our mother.
In the joys and sorrows of our missionary life, we feel close to her who is the Mother of Mercy.
Wherever our ministry takes us, we will strive to instil genuine devotion to the Immaculate Virgin who prefigures God’s final victory over all evil. (OMI Rule of Life, CC&RR Constitution 10)
During our pause I invite you to consult the 2188 reflections on this website which have been published over the past 9 years (hard to believe that it has been this long!) and to use the website’s “search” engine to look up themes – https://www.eugenedemazenod.net
I also encourage you to consult the OMIWORLD website for some daily reflections: https://www.omiworld.org/daily-inspirations/
You may wish to read the actual writings of St Eugene online. You can find these in chronological order at https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?page_id=2362
I wish you a Blessed Christmas and every blessing during 2020.
Frank Santucci OMI
Kusenberger Chair of Oblate Studies,
Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas.
I reflect, not for the first time, on the depth of our faith, the depth of this life in God which has been shared with us. “Open to the Spirit, she consecrated herself totally…” The depth of Mary’s faith!
“She received Christ in order to share him with all the world…” I am reminded of Eugene’s letter to Henri Tempier that we sat with yesterday and how he ‘shared’, how he tried to share with Tempier his experience of Mary. That idea of sharing their experiences. We are called not to simply share our knowledge but our lived experience just as Mary did, most certainly as Eugene did, as many of us do today.
“Wherever our ministry takes us, we will strive to instill genuine devotion to the Immaculate Virgin who prefigures God’s final victory over all evil.” We look to Mary on how she prefigured Jesus with her ‘Fiat’, with her ‘Oblation’. She most truly lived her faith which she shares with each of us; she is our Mother.
It is interesting when we look where Mary has been placed in our Rule of Life – in the very first section on “Mission”. They are expressed and lived out “with Mary Immaculate”.
I am reminded of Fr. Léo Deschâtelets’, words which he spoke during the 1972 General Chapter: “It is impossible that we degenerate, that we weaken, that we become useless to the Church and to the glory of God, as long as our whole life will be inspired by the article from our Constitutions, a masterful compendium of our whole spirituality. (He was referring to Article 6 in the 1966 version of the Constitutions & Rules.)
Our call, to live Christ Jesus
In apostolic community, to live Christ Jesus crucified
Among the most abandoned, in the Church
Proclaiming the Word of God, with daring humility and trust,
As prophets of the new world
With Mary Immaculate.
My love and prayers to all as we celebrate Mary’s Feast Day and as we move through our Advent journey. I wish a very Blessed Christmas wherever you are and look forward to meeting you not only in prayer but here is this place in 2020. And to you Frank a very special thank you for inviting us each day to spend time with Eugene and all of his sons and daughters.
Merry Christmas!